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political ^cbatce 



BETWEEN 



ABRAHAM I^INCOLN M^-J^ 



AND 



STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS 

In the Celebrated Campaign of 1858 in Illinois; including the 
preceding speeches of each at Chicago, Springfield, etc. 



ALSO, 



THE TWO GREAT SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
IN OHIO IN 1859, 



AND 
A COMPLETE INDEX TO THE WHOLE. 




®. S. Ibubbell 8. Company, 

Cleveland, Ohio. 
1895. 



60695 






CONTENTS. 



Speech of Lincolx, at Springfield, June 17, 1858, - - - - 
,. » AT Chicago, July 10, 1858, - - - " 

», »i AT Springfield, July 17, 1858, - - - - 

.. a AT Columbus, Ohio, September, 1859, - 

.. .< AT CiNCIXNATI, OhIO, SEPTEMBER, 1859, 

Speech of Douglas, AT Chicago, July 9, 1858, 

a 4' AT Bloomington, July 10, 1858, - - - - 

a .( AT Springfield, July 17,1858, - - - - 

Correspondence between Lincoln and Douglas, preliminary to 
the Debates, 

First Joint Debate, at Ottawa, August 21, 1858, - - 
Douglas's Opening Speech, - - 

Lincoln's Reply, 

Douglas's Rejoinder, 

Second Joint Debate, at Freeport, August 27, 1858, 

Lincoln's Opening Speech, 

Douglas's Reply, 

Lincoln's Rejoinder, 

Third Joint Debate, at Jonesboro, Sept. 15, 1858, - - - - 
Douglas's Speech, ----"'' 
Lincoln's Reply, ---■"'" 
Douglas's Rejoinder, 

Fourth Joint Debate, at Charleston, Sept. 18, 1858, - 

Lincoln's Speech, 

Douglas's Reply, 

Lincoln's Rejoinder, ---"'' 
Extract from Trumbull's Speech at Alton, 
Extract from Douglas's Speech at Jacksonville, 



Page. 
1 

20 

81 
303 

386 



8 

36 
60 



101 
101 
111 
127 

133 
133 
142 
161 

167 
167 
180 
199 

207 
207 
219 
238 
245 
251 



^'^ CONTENTS. 

Fifth Joint Debate, at Galesburgh, Oct. 7, 1858, - 

Douglas's Speech, 

Lincoln's Reply, - - 

Douglas's Rejoinder, 

Sixth Joint Debate, at Quincy, Oct. 13, 1858, 

Lincoln's Speech, 

Douglas's Reply, 

Lincoln's Rejoinder, 

Seventh and Last Joint Debate, at Alton, Oct. 15, 1858, 
Douglas's Speech, ----... 
Lincoln's Reply, ---.... 
Douglas's Rejoinder, ...... 



257 
257 

268 

284 

290 
290 
301 
318 

325 
325 

338 
357 



POLITICAL DEBATES 



BETWEEN 



LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS. 



SPEECH OF HON. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 

At Springfield, June 17, 1858. 

[The following speech was delivered at Springfield, 111., at the 
close of the Republican State Convention held at that time and place, 
and by which Convention Mr. Lincoln had been named as their 
candidate for United States Senator. Mr. Douglas was not present.] 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention : If 
we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, 
we could better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now 
far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed 
object and confident promise of putting an end to slavery agita- 
tion. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not 
only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, 
it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. 
"A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this 
government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. 
I do not expect the Union to be dissolved ; I do not expect the 
house to fall ; but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will 
become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of 
slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the 
public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ulti- 
mate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward till it shall 
become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new. North as 
well as South. 

Have we no tendency to the latter condition? 

Let any one who doubts, carefully contemplate that now 
almost complete legal combination — piece of machinery, so to 
speak — compounded of the Nebraska doctrine and the Dred Scott 
decision. Let him consider, not only what work the machinery 



2 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LIN'COLN 

is adapted to do, and how well adapted, but also let him study 
the history of its construction, and trace, if he can, or rather fail, 
if he can, to trace the evidences of design, and concert of action, 
among its chief architects, from the beginning. 

The new year of 1854 found slavery excluded from more 
than half the States by State Constitutions, and from most of 
the National territory by Congressional prohibition. Four days 
later, commenced the struggle which ended in repealing that 
Congressional prohibition. This opened all the National ter- 
ritory to slavery, and was the first point gained. 

But, so far. Congress only had acted, and an indorsement 
by the people, real or apparent, was indispensable to save the 
point already gained, and give chance for more. 

This necessity had not been overlooked, but had been pro- 
vided for, as well as might be, in the notable argument of "squatter 
sovereignty," otherwise called " sacred right of self-govern- 
ment," which latter phrase, though expressive of the only 
rightful basis of any government, was so perverted in this 
attempted use of it as to amount to just this : That if any one man 
choose to enslave another, no third man shall be allowed to 
object. That argument was incorporated into the Nebraska bill 
itself, in the language which follows : "It being the true intent 
and meaning of this Act not to legislate slavery into any Ter- 
ritory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the 
people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic 
institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution 
of the United States." Then opened the roar of loose declama- 
tion in favor of "squatter sovereignty," and "sacred right of 
self-government. " " But," said opposition members, " let us 
amend the bill so as to expressly declare that the people of the 
Territory may exclude slavery." " Not we, " said the friends 
of the measure ; and down they voted the amendment. 

While the Nebraska bill was passing through Congress, a 
law case, involving the question of a negro's freedom, by reason 
of his owner having voluntarily taken him first into a free State, 
and then into a territory covered by the Congressional prohibi- 
tion, and held him as a slave for a long time in each, was pass- 
ing through the United States Circuit Court for the District of 
Missouri ; and both Nebraska bill and lawsuit were brought to a 
decision in the same month of Ma}', 1854. The negro's name 
was " Dred Scott," which name now designates the decision 
finally made in the case. Before the then next Presidential elec- 
tion, the law case came to, and was argued in, the Supreme 
Court of the United States ; but the decision of it was deferred 
until after the election. Still, before the election. Senator 
Trumbull, on the floor of the Senate, requested the leading 
advocate of the Nebraska bill to state his opinion whether the 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 6 

people of a Territory can constitutionally exclude slavery from 
their limits ; and the latter answers : " That is a question for 
the Supreme Court." 

The election came. Mr. Buchanan was elected, and the 
indorsement, such as it was, secured. That was the second 
point gained. The indorsement, however, fell short of a clear 
popular majority b}" nearl}^ four hundred thousand votes, and so, 
perhaps, was not overwhelmingly reliable and satisfactory. The 
outgoing President, in his last annual message, as impressively as 
possible echoed back upon the people the weight and authority 
of the indorsement. The Supreme Court met again, did not 
announce their decision, but ordered a re-argument. The Presi- 
dential inauguration came, and still no decision of the court ; but 
the incoming President, in his inaugural address, fervently ex- 
horted the people to abide by the forthcoming decision, whatever 
it might be. Then, in a few days, came the decision. 

The reputed author of the Nebraska bill finds an early 
occasion to make a speech at this capital indorsing the Dred Scott 
decision, and vehemently denouncing all opposition to it. The 
new President, too, seizes the early occasion of the Silliman letter 
to indorse and strongly construe that decision, and to express his 
astonishment that any different view had ever been entertained ! 

At length a squabble springs up between the President and 
the author of the Nebraska bill, on the mere question oi fact, 
whether the Lecompton Constitution was or was not in any just 
sense made by the people of Kansas ; and in that quarrel the 
latter declares that all he wants is a fair vote for the people, and 
that he cares not whether slavery be voted down or voted uf. I do 
not understand his declaration, that he cares not whether slavery 
be voted down or voted up, to be intended by him other than as 
an apt definition of the polic}^ he would impress upon the public 
mind, — the principle for which he declares he has suffered so 
much, and is ready to suffer to the end. And well may he cling 
to that principle ! If he has any parental feeling, well may he 
cling to it. That principle is the only shred left of his original 
Nebraska doctrine. Under the Dred Scott decision "squatter 
sovereignty" squatted out of existence, tumbled down like tem- 
porary scaffolding ; like the mould at the foundry, served through 
one blast, and fell back into loose sand ; helped to carry an 
election, and then was kicked to the winds. His late joint 
struggle with the Republicans, against the Lecompton Constitu- 
tion, involves nothing of the original Nebraska doctrine. That 
struggle was made on a point — the right of a people to make 
their own constitution — upon which he and the Republicans 
have never differed. 

The several points of the Dred Scott decision, in connection 
with Senator Douglas's "care not" policy, constitute the piece 



4 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

of machinery, in its present state of advancement. This was the 
third point gained. The working points of that machinery are : — 

Firstly, That no negro slave, imported as such from Africa, 
and no descendant of such slave, can ever be a citizen of any 
State, in the sense of that term as used in the Constitution of the 
United States. This point is made in order to deprive the 
negro, in every possible event, of the benefit of that provision of 
the United States Constitution which declares that " The citizens 
of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of 
citizens in the several States." 

Secondly, That, " subject to the Constitution of the United 
States," neither Congress nor a Territorial Legislature can 
exclude slavery from any United States Territory. This point 
is made in order that individual men may fill up the Territories 
with slaves, without danger of losing them as property, and thus 
to enhance the chances of permanency to the institution through 
all the future. 

Thirdly, That whether the holding a negro in actual slavery 
in a free State, makes him free, as against the holder, the United 
States courts will not decide, but will leave to be decided by the 
courts of any slave State the negro may be forced into by the 
master. This point is made, not to be pressed immediately ; but, 
if acquiesced in for awhile, and apparently indorsed by the 
people at an election, then to sustain the logical conclusion that 
what Dred Scott's master might lawfully do with Dred Scott in 
the free State of Illinois, every other master may lawfully do 
with any other one, or one thousand slaves, in Illinois, or in any 
other free State. 

Auxiliary to all this, and working hand in hand with it, the 
Nebraska doctrine, or what is left of it, is to educate and mould 
public opinion, at least Northern public opinion, not to care 
whether slavery is voted down or voted up. This shows exactly 
where we now are ; and partially, also, whither we are tending. 

It will throw additional light on the latter, to go back and 
run the mind over the string of historical facts already stated. 
Several things will now appear less dark and mysterious than 
they did when they were transpiring. The people were to be 
left "perfectly free," "subject only to the Constitution." What 
the Constitution had to do with it, outsiders could not then see. 
Plainly enough now, it was an exactly fitted niche, for the Dred 
Scott decision to afterward come in, and declare the perfect free- 
dom of the people to be just no freedom at all. Why was the 
amendment, expressly declaring the right of the people, voted 
down? Plainly enough now, — the adoption of it would have 
spoiled the niche for the Dred 'Scott decision. Why was the 
court decision held up? Why even a Senator's individual 
opinion withheld, till after the Presidential election? Plainly 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 5 

enough now : the speaking out then would have damaged the 
perfectly free argument upon which the election was to be 
carried. Why the outgoing President's felicitation on the 
indorsement? Why the delay of a re-argument? Why the 
incoming President's advance exhortation in favor of the de- 
cision? These things look like the cautious patting and petting 
of a spirited horse preparatory to mounting him, when it is 
dreaded that he may give the rider a fall. And why the hasty 
after-indorsement of the decision by the President and others? 

We cannot absolutely know that all these exact adaptations 
are the result of preconcert. But when we see a lot of framed 
timbers, different portions of which we know have been gotten 
out at different times and places and by different workmen, — 
Stephen, Franklin, Roger and James, for instance, — and when 
we see these timbers joined together, and see they exactly make 
the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortises exactly 
fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the different pieces 
exactly adapted to their respective places, and not a piece too 
many or too few, — not omitting even scaffolding, — or, if a single 
piece be lacking, we see the place in the frame exactly fitted and 
prepared yet to bring such piece in, — in such a case, we find 
it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and 
Roger and James all understood one another from the beginning, 
and all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn up before 
the first blow was struck. 

It should not be overlooked that by the Nebraska bill the 
people of a State as well as Territory were to be left "per- 
fectly free," " subject only to the Constitution." Why mention a 
State? They were legislating for Territories, and not for or 
about States. Certainly the people of a State are and ought to 
be subject to the Constitution of the United States ; but why is 
mention of this lugged into this merely Territorial law? Why 
are the people of a Territory and the people of a State therein 
lumped together, and their relation to the Constitution therein 
treated as being precisely the same? While the opinion of the 
court, b}^ Chief Justice Taney, in the Dred Scott case, and the 
separate opinions of *1 the concurring Judges, expressly declare 
that the Constitution of the United States neither permits 
Congress nor a Territorial Legislature to exclude slavery from 
any United States Territory, they all omit to declare whether or 
not the same Constitution permits a State, or the people of a 
State, to exclude it. Possibly, this is a mere omission ; but who 
can be quite sure, if McLean or Curtis had sought to get into the 
opinion a declaration of unlimited power in the people of a State 
to exclude slavery from their limits, just as Chase and Mace 
sought to get such declaration, in behalf of the people of a 
Territory, into the Nebraska bill, — I ask, who can be quite sure 



6 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

that it would not have been voted down in the one case as it had 
been in the other? The nearest approach to the point of declar- 
ing the power of a State over slavery, is made by Judge Nelson. 
He approaches it more than once, using the precise idea, and 
almost the language, too, of the Nebraska Act. On one occasion, 
his exact language is, " Except in cases where the power is 
restrained by the Constitution of the United States, the law of 
the State is supreme over the subject of slavery within its juris- 
diction." In what cases the power of the States is so restrained 
by the United States Constitution, is left an open question, 
precisely as the same question, as to the restraint on the power 
of the Territories, was left open in the Nebraska Act. Put this 
and that together, and we have another nice little niche, which 
we may, ere long, see filled with another Supreme Court decision, 
declaring that the Constitution of the United States does not 
permit a State to exclude slavery from its limits. And this may 
especially be expected if the doctrine of "care not whether slavery 
be voted down or voted up " shall gain upon the public mind 
sufficiently to give promise that such a decision can be main- 
tained when made. 

Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being alike 
lawful in all the States. Welcome or unwelcome, such decision 
is probably coming, and will soon be upon us, unless the power 
of the present political d3'-nasty shall be met and overthrown. 
We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri 
are on the verge of making their State free, and we shall awake 
to the reality instead that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a 
slave State. To meet and overthrow the power of that dynasty 
is the work now before all those who would prevent that consum- 
mation. That is what we have to do. How can we best do it? 

There are those who denounce us openl}'^ to their own friends, 
and yet whisper us softly that Senator Douglas is the aptest 
instrument there is with which to effect that object. They wish 
us to infer all, from the fact that he now has a little quarrel with 
the present head of the dynasty, and that he has regularl}^ voted 
with us on a single point, upon which he and we have never 
differed. They remind us that he is a great man, and that the 
largest of us are very small ones. Let this be granted. But " a 
living dog is better than a dead lion." Judge Douglas, if not a 
dead lion, for this work is at least a caged and toothless one. 
How can he oppose the advances of slavery? He don't care 
anything about it. His avowed mission is impressing the " public 
heart" to care nothing about it. A leading Douglas Democratic 
newspaper thinks Douglas's superior talent will be needed to 
resist the revival of the African slave trade. Does Douglas 
believe an effort to revive that trade is approaching? He has 
not said so. Does he really think so? But if it is, how can he 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 7 

resist it? For 3'ears he has labored to prove it a sacred right of 
white men to take negro slaves into the new Territories. Can he 
possibly show that it is less a sacred right to buy them where 
they can be bought cheapest? And unquestionably they can be 
bought cheaper in Africa than in Virginia. He has done all in 
his power to reduce the whole question of slavery to one of a 
mere right of property ; and, as such, how can he oppose the 
foreign slave trade, — how can he refuse that trade in that " prop- 
erty " shall be " perfectly free," — unless he does it as a protection 
to the home production? And as the home producers will prob- 
ably not ask the protection, he will be wholly without a ground 
of opposition. 

Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man may rightfully 
be wiser to-day than he was yesterday ; that he may rightfully 
change when he finds himself wrong. But can we, for that reason, 
run ahead, and infer that he will make any particular change, 
of which he himself has given no intimation? Can we safely 
base our action upon any such vague inference? Now, as ever, 
I wish not to misrepresent Judge Douglas's position, question his 
motives, or do aught that can be personally offensive to him. 
Whenever, if ever, he and we can come together on principle so 
that our cause may have assistance from his great abilitv, I hope 
to have interposed no adventitious obstacle. But clearly he is 
not now with us ; he does not pretend to be, — he does not promise 
ever to be. 

Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and conducted by, its 
own undoubted friends, — those whose hands are free, whose 
hearts are in the work, who do care for the result. Two vears 
ago the Republicans of the nation mustered over thirteen hundred 
thousand strong. We did this under the single impulse of resist- 
ance to a common danger, with every external circumstance 
against us. Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements 
we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the 
battle through, under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud, 
and pampered enem}'. Did we brave all then, to falter now, — now, 
when that same enemy is wavering, dissevered, and belligerent? 
The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail ; if we stand firm, 
we shall not Jail. Wise counsels may accelerate, or mistakes 
delay it, but, sooner or later, the victory is sure to come. 



DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



SPEECH OF SENATOR DOUGLAS, 

On the Occasion of his Public Reception at Chicago, Friday Evening, 
July 9th, 1858. (Mr. Lincoln was present.) 

Mr. Douglas said, — 

Mr. Chairman and Fellow-Citizens : I can find no lan- 
guage which can adequately express my profound gratitude for 
the magnificent welcome which you have extended to me on this 
occasion. This vast sea of human faces indicates how deep an 
interest is felt by our people in the great questions which agitate 
the public mind, and which underlie the foundations of our free 
institutions. A reception like this, so great in numbers that no 
human voice can be heard to its countless thousands, — so enthu- 
siastic that no one individual can be the object of such enthusi- 
asm, — clearly shows that there is some great principle which 
sinks deep in the heart of the masses, and involves the rights and 
the liberties of a whole people, that has brought you together with 
a unanimity and a cordiality never before excelled, if, indeed, 
equaled, on any occasion. I have not the vanity to believe that 
it is any personal compliment to me. 

It is an expression of your devotion to that great principle 
of self-government, to which my life for many years past has 
been, and in the future will be, devoted. If there is any one 
principle dearer and more sacred than all others in free govern- 
ments, it is that which asserts the exclusive right of a free people 
to form and adopt their own fundamental law, and to manage 
and regulate their own internal affairs and domestic institutions. 

When I found an effort being made during the recent session 
of Congress to force a constitution upon the people of Kansas 
against their will, and to force that State into the Union with 
a constitution which her people had rejected by more than ten 
thousand, I felt bound as a man of honor and a representative of 
Illinois, bound by every consideration of duty, of fidelity, and' 
of patriotism, to resist to the utmost of m}^ power the consumma- 
tion of that fraud. With others, I did resist it, and resisted it 
successfully until the attempt was abandoned. We forced them 
to refer that constitution back to the people of Kansas, to be 
accepted or rejected as they shall decide at an election which is 
fixed for the first Monda}'- in August next. It is true that the 
mode of reference, and the form of the submission, was not such 
as I could sanction with my vote, for the reason that it discrimi- 
nated between Free States and Slave States ; providing that if 
Kansas consented to come in under the Lecompton Constitution 
it should be received with a population of thirty-five thousand ; 
but that if she demanded another constitution, more consistent 
with the sentiments of her people and their feelings, that it should 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 9 

not be received into the Union until she has 93,420 inhabitants. 
I did not consider that mode of submission fair, for the reason 
that any election is a mockery which is not free, that an}' election 
is a fraud upon the rights of the people which holds out induce- 
ments for affirmative votes, and threatens penalties for negative 
votes. But whilst I was not satisfied with the mode of submission, 
whilst I resisted it to the last, demanding a fair, a just, a free 
mode of submission, still, when the law passed placing it within 
the power of the people of Kansas at that election to reject the 
Lecompton Constitution, and then make another in harmony with 
their principles and their opinions, I did not believe that either 
the penalties on the one hand, or the inducements on the other, 
would force that people to accept a constitution to which they 
are irreconcilably opposed. All I can say is, that if their votes 
can be controlled by such considerations, all the sympathy which 
has been expended upon them has been misplaced, and all the 
efforts that have been made in defence of their right to self- 
government have been made in an unworthy cause. 

Hence, my friends, I regard the Lecompton battle as having 
been fought, and the victory won, because the arrogant demand 
for the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution 
unconditionally, whether her people wanted it or not, has been 
abandoned, and the principle which recognizes the right of the 
people to decide for themselves has been submitted in its place. 

Fellow-citizens, while I devoted my best energies — all m}'- 
energies, mental and physical — to the vindication of the great 
principle, and whilst the result has been such as will enable the 
people of Kansas to come into the Union with such a constitution 
as the}'- desire, yet the credit of this great moral victory is to be 
divided among a large number of men of various and different 
political creeds. I was rejoiced when I found in this great 
contest the Republican party coming up manfully and sustaining 
the principle that the people of each Territory, when coming into 
the Union, have the right to decide for themselves whether slavery 
shall or shall not exist within their limits. I have seen the time 
when that principle was controverted. I have seen the time when 
all parties did not recognize the right of a people to have slavery 
or freedom, to tolerate or prohibit slavery as they deemed best, 
but claimed that power for the Congress of the United States, 
regardless of the wishes of the people to be affected by it ; and 
when I found upon the Crittenden-Montgomery bill the Republi- 
cans and Americans of the North, and I may say, too, some 
glorious Americans and old-line Whigs from the South, like 
Crittenden and his patriotic associates, joined with a portion of 
the Democracy to carry out and vindicate the right of the people 
to decide whether slavery should or should not exist within the 
limits of Kansas, I was rejoiced within my secret soul, for I saw 



10 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

an indication that the American people, when they come to 
understand the principle, would give it their cordial support. 

The Crittenden-Montgomery bill was as fair and as perfect 
an exposition of the doctrine of popular sovereignty as could be 
carried out by any bill that man ever devised. It proposed to 
refer the Lecompton Constitution back to the people of Kansas, 
and give them the right to accept or reject it as they pleased, at 
a fair election, held in pursuance of law, and in the event of their 
rejecting it, and forming another in its stead, to permit them to 
come into the Union on an equal footing with the original States. 
It was fair and just in all of its provisions. I gave it my cordial 
support, and was rejoiced when I found that it passed the House 
of Representatives, and at one time I entertained high hope that 
it would pass the Senate. 

I regard the great principle of popular sovereignty as having 
been vindicated and made triumphant in this land as a permanent 
rule of public policy in the organization of Territories and the 
admission of new States. Illinois took her position upon this 
principle many j^ears ago. You all recollect that in 1850, after 
the passage of the Compromise measures of that year, when I 
returned to my home there was great dissatisfaction expressed 
at my course in supporting those measures. I appeared before 
the people of Chicago at a mass meeting, and vindicated each 
and every one of those measures ; and by reference to my speech 
on that occasion, which was printed and circulated broadcast 
throughout the State at the time, you will find that I then and 
there said that those measures were all founded upon the great 
principle that every people ought to possess the right to form and 
regulate their own domestic institutions in their own way, and that 
that right being possessed by the people of the States, I saw no 
reason why the same principle should not be extended to all of 
the Territories of the United States. A general election was 
held in this State a few months afterward, for members of the 
Legislature, pending which all these questions were thoroughly 
canvassed and discussed, and the nominees of the different 
parties instructed in regard to the wishes of their constituents 
upon them. When that election was over, and the Legislature 
assembled, they proceeded to consider the merits of those Com- 
promise measures, and the principles upon which they were 
predicated. And what was the result of their action? They 
passed resolutions, first repealing the Wilmot Proviso instructions, 
and in lieu thereof adopted another resolution, in which they 
declared the great principle which asserts the right of the people 
to make their own form of government and establish their own 
institutions. That resolution is as follows : — 

Resolved^ That our liberty and independence are based upon the 
right of the people to form for themselves such a government as they 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 11 

may choose; that this great principle, the birthright of freemen, the 
gift of Heaven, secured to us by the blood of our ancestors, ought to 
be secured to future generations, and no~limitation ought to be 
applied to this power in the organization of any Territory of the 
United States, of either Territorial Government or State Constitution, 
provided the Government so established shall be Republican, and in 
conformity vv^ith the Constitution of the United States. 

That resolution, declaring the great principle of self-govern- 
ment as applicable to the Territories and new States, passed the 
House of Representatives of this State by a vote of sixty-one in 
the affirmative, to only four in the negative. Thus you find that 
an expression of public opinion — enlightened, educated, intelligent 
public opinion — on this question, by the representatives of Illinois 
in 1851, approaches nearer to unanimity than has ever been 
obtained on any controverted question. That resolution was 
entered on the journal of the Legislature of the State of Illinois, 
and it has remained there from that day to this, a standing 
instruction to her Senators, and a request to her Representatives, 
in Congress to carry out that principle in all future cases. 
Illinois, therefore, stands pre-eminent as the State which stepped 
forward early and established a platform applicable to this slavery 
question, concurred in alike by Whigs and Democrats, in which 
it was declared to be the wish of our people that thereafter the 
people of the Territories should be left perfectly free to form and 
regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, and that no 
limitation should be placed upon that right in an}^ form. 

Hence what was my duty in 1854, when it became necessary 
to bring forward a bill for the organization of the Territories of 
Kansas and Nebraska? Was it not my duty, in obedience to 
the Illinois platform, to your standing instructions to 3^our 
Senators, adopted with almost entire unanimity, to incorporate 
in that bill the great principle of self-government, declaring that 
it was " the true intent and meaning of the Act not to legislate 
slavery into any State or Territory, or to exclude it therefrom, 
but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate 
their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the 
Constitution of the United States?" I did incorporate that 
principle in the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and perhaps I did as much 
as any living man in the enactment of that bill, thus establishing the 
doctrine in the public policy of the country. I then defended 
that principle against assaults from one section of the Union. 
During this last winter it became my duty to vindicate it against 
assaults from the other section of the Union. I vindicated it 
boldly and fearlessly, as the people of Chicago can bear witness, 
when it was assailed by Free-soilers ; and during this winter I 
vindicated and defended it as boldl}^ and fearlessly when it was 
attempted to be violated by the almost united South. I pledged 



12 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

myself to you on every stump in Illinois in 1854, 1 pledged myself 
to the people of other States, North and South, wherever I spoke ; 
and in the United States Senate and elsewhere, in every form in 
which I could reach the public mind or the public ear, I gave the 
pledge that I, so far as the power should be in my hands, would vin- 
dicate the principle of the right of the people to form their own insti- 
tutions, to establish Free States or Slave States as they chose, and 
that that principle should never be violated either by fraud, by 
violence, by circumvention, or by any other means, if it was in 
my power to prevent it. I now submit to you, my fellow-citizens, 
whether I have not redeemed that pledge in good faith. Yes, 
my friends, I have redeemed it in good faith ; and it is a matter 
of heartfelt gratification to me to see these assembled thousands 
here to-night bearing their testimony to the fidelity with which 
I have advocated that principle, and redeemed my pledges in 
connection with it. 

I will be entirely frank with you. My object was to secure 
the right of the people of each State and of each Territory, North 
or South, to decide the question for themselves, to have slavery 
or not, just as the}' chose ; and my opposition to the Lecompton 
Constitution was not predicated upon the ground that it was a 
pro-slavery constitution, nor would my action have been different 
had it been a Free-soil constitution. My speech against the 
Lecompton fraud was made on the 9th of December, while the 
vote on the slavery clause in that Constitution was not taken 
until the 21st of the same month, nearly two weeks after. I 
made my speech against the Lecompton monstrosity solely on 
the ground that it was a violation of the fundamental principles 
of free government ; on the ground that it was not the act and 
deed of the people of Kansas ; that it did not embody their will ; 
that they were averse to it ; and hence I denied the right of 
Congress to force it upon them, either as a Free State or a Slave 
State. I deny the right of Congress to force a slaveholding 
State upon an unwilling people. I deny their right to force a 
Free State upon an unwilling people. I deny their right to force 
a good thing upon a people who are unwilling to receive it. 
The great principle is the right of every community to judge and 
decide for itself whether a thing is right or wrong, whether it 
would be good or evil for them to adopt it ; and the right of free 
action, the right of free thought, the right of free judgment, 
upon the question is dearer to every ti*ue American than any 
other under a free government. My objection to the Lecompton 
contrivance was, that it undertook to put a constitution on the 
people of Kansas against their will, in opposition to their wishes, 
and thus violated the great principle upon which all our institu- 
tions rest. It is no answer to this argument to say that slavery 
is an evil, and hence should not be tolerated. You must allow 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 13 

the people to decide for themselves whether it is a good or an 
evil. You allow them to decide for themselves whether they 
desire a Maine liquor law or not ; you allow them to decide for 
themselves what kind of common schools they will have, what 
system of banking they will adopt, or whether they will adopt 
an}- at all ; you allow them to decide for themselves the relations 
between husband and wife, parent and child, guardian and 
ward, — in fact, you allow them to decide for themselves all other 
questions ; and why not upon this question ? Whenever you put 
a limitation upon the right of any people to decide what laws 
they want, you have destroyed the fundamental principle of 
self-government. 

In connection with this subject, perhaps, it will not be im- 
proper for me on this occasion to allude to the position of those 
who have chosen to arraign my conduct on this same subject. I 
have observed from the public prints that but a few days ago the 
Republican party of the State of Illinois assembled in Convention 
at Springfield, and not only laid down their platform, but 
nominated a candidate for the United States Senate, as my 
successor. I take great pleasure in saying that I have known, 
personally and intimately, for about a quarter of a century, the 
worthy gentleman who has been nominated for my place, and I 
will say that I regard him as a kind, amiable, and intelligent 
gentleman, a good citizen and an honorable opponent ; and what- 
ever issue I may have with him will be of principle, and not 
involving personalities. Mr. Lincoln made a speech before that 
Republican Convention which unanimously nominated him for 
the Senate, — a speech evidently well prepared and carefully 
written, — in which he states the basis upon which he proposes to 
carry on the campaign during this summer. In it he lays down 
two distinct propositions which I shall notice, and upon which I 
shall take a direct and bold issue with him. 

His first and main proposition I will give in his own language, 
scripture quotations and all [laughter] ; I give his exact 
language: '"A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I 
believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave 
and \\?\ifree. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved^ I do 
not expect the house \.o fall ; but I do expect it to cease to be 
divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other." 

In other words, Mr. Lincoln asserts, as a fundamental 
principle of this government, that there must be uniformity in 
the local laws and domestic institutions of each and all tlie States 
of the Union ; and he therefore invites all the non-slaveholding 
States to band together, organize as one body, and make war 
upon slavery in Kentucky, upon slavery in Virginia, upon the 
Carolinas, upon slavery in all of the slaveholding States in this 
Union, and to persevere in that war until it shall be exterminated. 



14 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

He then notifies the slaveholding States to stand together as a 
unit and make an aggressive . war upon the Free States of this 
Union with a view of establishing slavery in them all ; of forcing 
it upon Illinois, of forcing it upon New York, upon New England, 
and upon every other Free State, and that they shall keep up 
the warfare until it has been formally established in them all. In 
other words, Mr. Lincoln advocates boldly and clearly a war of 
sections, a war of the North against the South, of the Free 
States against the Slave States, — a war of extermination, — to be 
continued relentlessly until the one or the other shall be subdued, 
and all the States shall either become free or become slave. 

Now, my friends, I must say to you frankly that I take bold, 
unqualified issue with him upon that principle. I assert that it is 
neither desirable nor possible that there should be uniformity in 
the local institutions and domestic regulations of the different 
States of this Union. The framers of our government never con- 
templated uniformity in its internal concerns. The fathers of the 
Revolution and the sages who made the Constitution well under- 
stood that the laws and domestic institutions which would suit the 
granite hills of New Hampshire would be totally unfit for the rice 
plantations of South Carolina ; they well understood that the 
laws which would suit the agricultural districts of Pennsylvania 
and New York would be totally unfit for the large mining regions 
of the Pacific, or the lumber regions of Maine. They well under- 
stood that the great varieties of soil, of production, and of interests 
in a Republic as large as this, required different local and 
domestic regulations in each locality, adapted to the wants and 
interests of each separate State, and for that reason it was pro- 
vided in the Federal Constitution that the thirteen original States 
should remain sovereign and supreme within their own limits in 
regard to all that was local and internal and domestic, while the 
Federal Government should have certain specified powers which 
were general and national, and could be exercised only by Federal 
authority. 

The framers of the Constitution well understood that each 
locality, having separate and distinct interests, required separate 
and distinct laws, domestic institutions, and police regulations 
adapted to its own wants and its own condition ; and they acted 
on the presumption, also, that these laws and institutions would 
be as diversified and as dissimilar as the States would be numer- 
ous, and that no two would be precisely alike, because the inter- 
ests of no two would be precisely the same. Hence I assert that 
the great fundamental principle which underlies our complex 
system of State and Federal governments contemplated diversity 
and dissimilarity in the local institutions and domestic affairs of 
each and every State then in the Union, or thereafter to be 
admitted into the Confederacy. I therefore conceive that my 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 15 

friend Mr. Lincoln has totally misapprehended the great principles 
upon which our government rests. Uniformity in local and 
domestic affairs would be destructive of State rights, of State 
sovereignty, of personal liberty and personal freedom. Uniformity 
is the parent of despotism the world over, not only in politics, but 
in religion. Wherever the doctrine of uniformity is proclaimed, 
that all the States must be free or all slave, that all labor must be 
white or all black, that all the citizens of the different States must 
have the same privileges or be governed by the same regulations, 
you have destroyed the greatest safeguard which our institutions 
have thrown around the rights of the citizen. 

How could this uniformity be accomplished, if it was desir- 
able and possible? There is but one mode in which it could be 
obtained, and that must be by abolishing the State Legislatures, 
blotting out State sovereignty, merging the rights and sover- 
eignty of the States in one consolidated empire, and vesting Con- 
gress with the plenary power to make all the police regulations, 
domestic and local laws, uniform throughout the limits of the 
Republic. When you shall have done this, you will have uni- 
formity. Then the States will all be slave or all be free ; then 
negroes will vote everywhere or nowhere ; then you will have a 
Maine liquor law in every State or none ; then you will have 
uniformity in all things, local and domestic, by the authority of 
the Federal Government. But when you attain that uniformity, 
you will have converted these thirty-two sovereign, independent 
States into one consolidated empire, with the uniformity of dis- 
position reigning triumphant throughout the length and breadth 
of the land. 

From this view of the case, my friends, I am driven irresist- 
ibly to the conclusion that diversity, dissimilarity, variety, in all 
our local and domestic institutions is the great safeguard of our 
liberties, and that the framers of our institutions were wise, saga- 
cious, and patriotic when they made this government a confeder- 
ation of sovereign States, with a legislature for each, and 
conferred upon each legislature the power to make all local and 
domestic institutions to suit the people it represented, without in- 
terference from any other State or from the general Congress of 
the Union. If we expect to maintain our liberties, we must pre- 
serve the rights and sovereignty of the States ; we must main- 
tain and carry out that great principle of self-government 
incorporated in the Compromise measures of 1850, indorsed by 
the Illinois Legislature in 1851, emphatically embodied and 
carried out in the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and vindicated this year 
by the refusal to bring Kansas into the Union with a constitutign 
distasteful to her people. 

The other proposition discussed by Mr. Lincoln in his 
speech consists in a crusade against the Supreme Court of the 



16 DEBATES BETWEEN ..BRAHAM LINCOLN 

United States on account of the I red Scott decision. On this 
question also I desire to say to y u unequivocally, that I take 
direct and distinct issue with him. I have no warfare to make 
on the Supreme Court of the United States, either on account of 
that or any other decision which tht y have pronounced from that 
bench. The Constitution of the United States has provided that 
the powers of government (and the Constitution of each State 
has the same provision) shall be divided into three departments, 
— executive, legislative, and judicial. The right and the province 
of expounding the Constitution and constructing the law is vested 
in the judiciar}^ established b}^ the Constitution. As a lawyer, I 
feel at liberty to appear before the court and controvert any 
principle of law while the question is pending before the tribunal ; 
but when the decision is made, my private opinion, your opinion, 
all other opinions, must yield to the majesty of that authoritative 
adjudication. I wish you to bear in mind that this involves a 
great principle, upon which our rights, our liberty, and our 
property all depend. What security have you for your property, 
for your reputation, and for your personal rights, if the courts are 
not upheld, and their decisions respected when once fairly 
rendered by the highest tribunal known to the Constitution ? I 
do not choose, therefore, to go into any argument with Mr. Lin- 
coln in reviewing the various decisions which the Supreme 
Court has made, either upon the Dred Scott case or any other. 
I have no idea of appealing from the decision of the Supreme 
Court upon a constitutional question to the decisions of a tumultu- 
ous town meeting. I am aware that once an eminent lawyer of 
this city, now no more, said that the State of Illinois had the 
most perfect judicial system in the world, subject to but one 
exception, which could be cured by a slight amendment, and that 
amendment was to so change the law as to allow an appeal from 
the decisions of the Supreme Court of Illinois, on all constitu- 
tional questions, to justices of the peace. 

M}^ friend Mr. Lincoln, who sits behind me, reminds me 
that that proposition was made when I was judge of the Supreme 
Court. Be that as it may, I do not think that fact adds any 
greater weight or authority to the suggestion. It matters not 
with me who was on the bench, whether Mr. Lincoln or myself, 
whetlier a Lockwood or a Smith, a Taney or a Marshall ; the 
decision of the highest tribunal known to the Constitution of the 
country must be final till it has been reversed by an equally high 
authority. Hence, I am opposed to this doctrine of Mr. Lincoln 
by which he proposes to take an appeal from the decision of the 
Supreme Court of the United States, upon this high constitutional 
question, to a Republican caucus sitting in the country. Yes, or 
any other caucus or town meeting, whether it be Republican, 
American, or Democratic. I respect the decisions of that august 



AND STEPHE^J A. DOUGLAS. 17 

tribunal ; I shall always bow(:n deference to them. I am a law- 
abiding man. I will sustainothe Constitution of my country as 
our fathers have made it. I will yield obedience to the laws, 
whether I like them or not, ap I find them on the statute book. I 
will sustain the judicial tribunals and constituted authorities in 
all matters withiji the pale of their jurisdiction as defined by the 
Constitution. 

But I am equally free to say that the reason assigned by Mr. 
Lincoln for resisting the decision of the Supreme Court in the 
Dred Scott case does not in itself meet my approbation. He 
objects to it because that decision declared that a negro 
descended from African parents who were brought here and sold 
as slaves is not, and cannot be a citizen of the United States. 
He says it is wrong, because it deprives the negro of the benefits 
of that clause of the Constitution which says that citizens of one 
State shall enjoy all the privileges and immunities of citizens of 
the several States ; in other words, he thinks it wrong because it 
deprives the negro of the privileges, immunities, and rights of 
citizenship, which pertain, according to that decision, only to the 
white man. I am free to say to you that in my opinion this 
government of ours is founded on the white basis. It was made 
by the white man, for the benefit of the white man, to be 
administered by white men, in such manner as they should 
determine. It is also true that a negro, an Indian, or any other 
man of inferior race to a white man should be permitted to enjo}--, 
and humanity requires that he should have, all the rights, 
privileges, and immunities which he is capable of exercising 
consistent with the safety of society. I would give him every 
right and every privilege which his capacity would enable him to 
enjoy, consistent with the good of the society in which he lived. 
But you may ask me, What are these rights and these privileges ? 
My answer is, that each State must decide for itself the nature 
and extent of these rights. Illinois has decided for herself. We 
have decided that the negro shall not be a slave, and we have at 
the same time decided that he shall not vote, or serve on juries, 
or enjoy political privileges. I am content with that system of 
policy which we have adopted for ourselves. I deny the right 
of any other State to complain of our policy in that respect, or 
to interfere with it, or to attempt to change it. On the other 
hand, the State of Maine has decided that in that State a negro 
man may vote on an equality with the white man. The sovereign 
power of Maine had the right to prescribe that rule for herself. 
Illinois has no right to complain of Maine for conferring the 
right of negro suffrage, nor has Maine any right to interfere with 
or complain of Illinois because she has denied negro suffrage. 

The State of New York has decided by her Constitution that 
a negro may vote, provided that he own $250 worth of property, 



18 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

but not Otherwise. The rich negro can vote, but the poor one 
cannot. Although that distinction does not commend itself to 
my judgment, yet I assert that the sovereign power of New York 
had a right to prescribe that form of the elective franchise. 
Kentucky, Virginia, and other States have provided that negroes, 
or a certain class of them in those States, shall be slaves, having 
neither civil nor political rights. Without indorsing the wisdom 
of that decision, I assert that Virginia has the same power, by 
virtue of her sovereignty to protect slavery within her limits, as 
Illinois has to banish it forever from our own borders. I assert 
the right of each State to decide for itself on all these questions, 
and I do not subscribe to the doctrine of my friend Mr. Lincoln, 
that uniformity is either desirable or possible. I do not acknowl- 
edge that the States must all be free or must all be slave. 

I do not acknowledge that the negro must have civil and 
political rights everywhere or nowhere. I do not acknowledge 
that the Chinese must have the same rights in California that we 
would confer upon him here. I do not acknowledge that the 
coolie imported into this country must necessarily be put upon 
an equality with the white race. I do not acknowledge any of 
these doctrines of uniformity in the local and domestic regu- 
lations in the different States. 

Thus you see, my fellow-citizens, that the issues between 
Mr. Lincoln and myself, as respective candidates for the United 
States Senate, as made up, are direct, unequivocal, and irrecon- 
cilable. He goes for uniformity in our domestic institutions, for 
a war of sections, until one or the other shall be subdued. I go 
for the great principle of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, — the right of 
the people to decide for themselves. 

On the other point, Mr. Lincoln goes for a warfare upon the 
Supreme Court of the United States because of their judicial 
decision in the Dred Scott case. I yield obedience to the decis- 
ions in that court, — to the final determination of the highest 
judicial tribunal known to our Constitution. He objects to the 
Dred Scott decision because it does not put the negro in the 
possession of the rights of citizenship on an equality with the 
white man. I am opposed to negro equality. I repeat that this 
nation is a white people, — a people composed of European 
descendants ; a people that have established this government for 
themselves and their posterity, — and I am in favor of preserving, 
not only the purity of the blood, but the purity of the government 
from any mixture or amalgamation with inferior races. I have 
seen the effects of this mixture of superior and inferior races, — 
this amalgamation of white men and Indians and negroes ; we 
have seen it in Mexico, in Central America, in South America, 
and in all the Spanish-American States ; and its result has been 
degeneration, demoralization, and degradation below the capacity 
for self-government. 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 19 

I am opposed to taking any step that recognizes the negro 
man or the Indian as the equal of the white man. I am opposed 
to giving him a voice in the administration of the government. 
I would extend to the negro and the Indian and to all dependent 
races every right, every privilege, and every immunity consistent 
with the safety and welfare of the white races ; but equalit}^ they 
never should have, either political or social, or in any other 
respect whatever. 

My friends, you see that the issues are distinctly drawn. I 
stand by the same platform that I have so often proclaimed to 
you and to the people of Illinois heretofore. I stand by the 
Democratic organization, yield obedience to its usages, and 
support its regular nominations. I indorse and approve the 
Cincinnati platform, and I adhere to and intend to carry out, as 
part of that platform, the great principle of self-government, 
which recognizes the right of the people in each State and 
Territory to decide for themselves their domestic institutions. 
In other words, if the Lecompton issue shall arise again, you 
have only to turn back and see where you have found me during 
the last six months, and then rest assured that you will find me 
in the same position, battling for the same principle, and vindi- 
cating it from assault from whatever quarter it may come, so long 
as I have the power to do it. 

Fellow-citizens, you now have before you the outlines of the 
propositions which I intend to discuss before the people of Illinois 
during the pending campaign. I have spoken without prepara- 
tion and in a very desultory manner, and may have omitted some 
points which I desired to discuss, and may have been less explicit 
on others than I could have wished. I have made up my mind 
to appeal to the people against the combination which has been 
made against me. The Republican leaders have formed an 
alliance — an unholy, unnatural alliance — with a portion of the 
unscrupulous Federal office-holders. I intend to fight that allied 
army wherever I meet them. I know they deny the alliance, 
while avoiding the common purpose ; but yet these men, who are 
trying to divide the Democratic party for the purpose of electing 
a Republican Senator in my place, are just as much the agents, 
the tools, the supporters of Mr. Lincoln as if they were avowed 
Republicans, and expect their reward for their services when the 
Republicans come into power. I shall deal with these allied 
forces just as the Russians dealt with the Allies at Sebastopol. 
The Russians, when they fired a broadside at the common enemy, 
did not stop to inquire whether it hit a Frenchman, an English- 
man, or a Turk, nor will I stop, nor shall I stop to inquire 
whether my blows hit the Republican leaders or their allies, 
who are holding the Federal offices, and yet acting in concert 
with the Republicans to defeat the Democratic party and its 



20 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

nominees. I do not include all of the Federal office-holders in 
this remark. Such of them as are Democrats and show their 
Democracy by remaining inside of the Democratic organization 
and supporting its nominees, I recognize as Democrats ; but 
those who, having been defeated inside of the organization, go 
outside and attempt to divide and destroy the party in concert 
with the Republican leaders, have ceased to be Democrats, and 
belong to the allied army, whose avowed object is to elect the 
Republican ticket by dividing and destroying the Democratic 
party. 

My friends, I have exhausted myself, and I certainly have 
fatigued you, in the long and desultory remarks which I have 
made. It is now two nights since I have been in bed, and I 
think I have a right to a little sleep. I will, however, have an 
opportunity of meeting you face to face, and addressing you on 
more than one occasion before the November election. In 
conclusion, I must again say to you, justice to my own feelings 
demands it, that my gratitude for the welcome you have extended 
to me on this occasion knows no bounds, and can be described 
by no language which I can command. I see that I am literally 
at home when among my constituents. This welcome has amply 
repaid me for every effort that I have made in the public service 
during nearly twenty-five years that I have held office at your 
hands. It not only compensates me for the past, but it furnishes 
an inducement and incentive for future effort which no man, no 
matter how patriotic, can feel who has not witnessed the mag- 
nificent reception you have extended to me to-night on my return 



SPEECH OF HON. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

IN REPLY TO SENATOR DOUGLAS. 

Delivered at Chicago, Saturday Evening, July 10, 1858. (Mr. Douglas 

was not present.) 

Mr. Lincoln was introduced by C. L. Wilson, Esq. ; and 
as he made his appearance he was greeted with a perfect storm 
of applause. For some moments the enthusiasm continued 
unabated. At last, when by a wave of his hand, partial silence 
was restored, Mr. Lincoln said : — 

My Fellow-Citizens: On yesterday evening, upon the 
occasion of the reception given to Senator Douglas, I was 
furnished with a seat very convenient for hearing him, and was 
otherwise very courteously treated by him and his friends, and 
for which I thank him and them. During the course of his 
remarks my name was mentioned in such a way as, I suppose, 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 21 

renders it at least not improper that I should make some sort of 
reply to him. I shall not attempt to follow him in the precise 
order in which he addressed the assembled multitude upon that 
occasion, though I shall perhaps do so in the main. 

There was one question to which he asked the attention of 
the crowd, which I deem of somewhat less importance — at least 
of propriety for me to dwell upon — than the others, which he 
brought in near the close of his speech, and which I think it 
would not be entirely proper for me to omit attending to, and yet 
if I were not to give some attention to it now, I should probably 
forget it altogether. While I am upon this subject, allow me to 
say that I do not intend to indulge in that inconvenient mode 
sometimes adopted in public speaking, of reading from docu- 
ments ; but I shall depart from that rule so far as to read a little 
scrap from his speech, which notices this first topic of which I 
shall speak, — that is, provided I can find it in the paper. 

" I have made up my mind to appeal to the people against the 
combination that has been made against me ; the Republican leaders 
having formed an alliance — an unholy and unnatural alliance — with 
a portion of unscrupulous Federal office-holders. I intend to fight 
that allied army wherever I meet them. I know they deny the 
alliance ; but yet these men who are trying to divide the Democratic 
party for the purpose of electing a Republican Senator in my place 
are just as much the agents and tools of the supporters of Mr. Lincoln. 
Hence I shall deal with this allied army just as the Russians dealt 
with the Allies at Sebastopol, — that is, the Russians did not stop to 
inquire, when they fired a broadside, whether it hit an Englishman, 
a Frenchman, or a Turk. Nor will I stop to inquire, nor shall I 
hesitate, whether my blows shall hit the Republican leaders or their 
allies, who are holding the Federal offices, and yet acting in concert 
with them." 

Well, now, gentlemen, is not that very alarming? Just to 
think of it ! right at the outset of his canvass, I, a poor, kind, 
amiable, intelligent gentleman, — I am to be slain in this way! 
Wh}'-, my friend the Judge is not only, as it turns out, not a dead 
lion, nor even a living one, — he is the rugged Russian Bear ! 

But if they will have it — for he says that we deny it — that 
there is any such alliance, as he says there is, — and I don t 
propose hanging very much upon this question of veracity, — but 
if he will have it that there is such an alliance, — that the 
Administration men and we are allied, and we stand in the 
attitude of English, French, and Turk, he occupying the position 
of the Russian, in that case I beg that he will indulge us while 
we barely suggest to him that these allies took Sebastopol. 

Gentlemen, only a few more words as to this alliance. For 
my part, I have to say that whether there be such an alliance 
depends, so far as I know, upon what may be a right definition 



22 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

of the term " alliance." If for the Republican party to see the 
other great party to which they are opposed divided among- 
themselves, and not try to stop the division, and rather be glad 
of it, — if that is an alliance, I confess I am in ; but if it is meant 
to be said that the Republicans had formed an alliance going 
beyond that, by which there is contribution of money or sacrifice 
of principle on the one side or the other, so far as the Republican 
party is concerned, — if there be any such thing, I protest that I 
neither know anything of it, nor do I believe it. I will, however, 
say, — as I think this branch of the argument is lugged in, — I 
would before I leave it, state, for the benefit of those concerned, 
that one of those same Buchanan men did once tell me of an 
argument that he made for his opposition to Judge Douglas. He 
said that a friend of our Senator Douglas had been talking to 
him, and had, among other things, said to him : " Why, you don't 
want to beat Douglas?" "Yes," said he, "I do want to beat 
him, and I will tell you why. I believe his original Nebraska bill 
was right in the abstract, but it was wrong in the time that it was 
brought forward. It was wrong in the application to a Territory 
in regard to which the question had been settled ; it was brought 
forward at a time when nobody asked him ; it was tendered to 
the South when the South had not asked for it, but when they 
could not well refuse it ; and for this same reason he forced that 
question upon our party. It has sunk the best men all over the 
nation, everywhere ; and now, when our President, struggling 
with the difficulties of this man's getting up, has reached the very 
hardest point to turn in the case, he deserts him and I am for 
putting him where he will trouble us no more." 

Now, gentlemen, that is not my argument ; that is not my 
argument at all. I have only been stating to you the argument 
of a Buchanan man. You will judge if there is an}^ force in it. 

Popular sovereignty ! everlasting popular sovereignty ! Let 
us for a moment inquire into this vast matter of popular 
sovereignty. What is popular sovereignty? We recollect 
that at an early period in the history of this struggle there 
was another name for the same thing, — "Squatter Sover- 
eignty." It was not exactly Popular Sovereignty, but Squatter 
Sovereignty. What do those terms mean? What do those 
terms mean when used now? And vast credit is taken by 
our friend the Judge in regard to his support of it, when he 
declares the last years of his life have been, and all the future 
years of his life shall be, devoted to this matter of popular 
sovereignty. What is it? Why, it is the sovereignty of the 
people! What was Squatter Sovereignty? I suppose if it had 
any significance at all, it was the right of the people to govern 
themselves, to be sovereign in their own affairs while they were 
squatted down in a country not their own, while they had 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 23 

squatted on a Territory that did not belong to them, in the sense 
that a State belongs to the people who inhabit it, — when it 
belonged to the nation ; such right to govern themselves was 
called "Squatter Sovereignty." 

Now, I wish you to mark. What has become of that Squatter 
Sovereignty? What has become of it? Can you get anybody 
to tell you now that the people of a Territory have any authority 
to govern themselves, in regard to this mooted question of 
slaver}'-, before they form a State Constitution? No such thing 
at all, although there is a general running fire, and although 
there has been a hurrah made in every speech on that side, 
assuming that policy had given the people of a Territory the right 
to govern themselves upon this question ; yet the point is dodged. 
To-day it has been decided — no more than a year ago it was 
decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, and is in- 
sisted upon to-day — that the people of a Territory have no right 
to exclude slavery from a Territory ; that if any one man chooses 
to take slaves into a Territory, all the rest of the people have no 
right to keep them out. This being so, and this decision being 
made one of the points that the Judge approved, and one in the 
approval of which he says he means to keep me down, — put me 
down I should not say, for I have never been up. He says he is 
in favor of it, and sticks to it, and expects to win his battle on 
that decision, which says that there is no such thing as Squatter 
Sovereignty, but that any one man may take slaves into a Terri- 
tory, and all the other men in the Territory may be opposed to 
it, and yet by reason of the Constitution they cannot prohibit it. 
When that is so, how much is left of this vast matter of Squatter 
Sovereignty, I should like to know? 

When we get back, we get to the point of the right of the 
people to make a Constitution. Kansas was settled, for example, 
in 1854. It was a Territory yet, without having formed a consti- 
tution, in a very regular way, for three years. All this time 
negro slavery could be taken in by any few individuals, and by 
that decision of the Supreme Court, which the Judge approves, 
all the rest of the people cannot keep it out ; but when they come 
to make a constitution, they may say they will not have slavery. 
But it is there ; they are obliged to tolerate it some way, and all 
experience shows it will be so, for they will not take the negro 
slaves and absolutely deprive the owners of them. All experi- 
ence shows this to be so. All that space of time that runs from 
the beginning of the settlement of the Territory until there is 
sufficiency of people to make a State constitution, — all that 
portion of time popular sovereignty is given up. The seal is 
absolutely put down upon it by the court decision, and Judge 
Douglas puts his own upon the top of that ; yet he is appealing 
to the people to give him vast credit for his devotion to popular 
sovereignty. 



24 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Again, when we get to the question of the right of the people 
to form a State constitution as they please, to form it with slavery 
or without slavery, — if that is anything new, I confess I don't 
know it. Has there ever been a time when anybody said that 
any other than the people of a Territory itself should form a 
constitution? What is now in it that Judge Douglas should have 
fought several years of his life, and pledge himself to fight all the 
remaining years of his life for? Can Judge Douglas find any- 
body on earth that said that anybody else should form a 
constitution for a people? [A voice, "Yes."] Well, I should 
like you to name him ; I should like to know who he was. [Same 
voice, "John Calhoun."] 

Mr. Lincoln : No, sir, I never heard of even John Calhoun 
saying such a thing. He insisted on the same principle as Judge 
Douglas ; but his mode of applying it, in fact, was wrong. It is 
enough for my purpose to ask this crowd whenever a Republican 
said anything against it. They never said anything against it, 
but they have constantly spoken for it ; and whoever will under- 
take to examine the platform, and the speeches of responsible 
men of the party, and of irresponsible men, too, if you please, will 
be unable to find one word from anybody in the Republican 
ranks opposed to that Popular Sovereignty which Judge Douglas 
thinks that he has invented. I suppose that Judge Douglas will 
claim, in a little while, that he is the inventor of the idea that 
the people should govern themselves ; that nobody ever thought 
of such a thing until he brought it forward. We do not remember 
that in that old Declaration of Independence it is said that " We 
hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal ; 
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable 
rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness ; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted 
among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the 
governed." There is the origin of Popular Sovereignty. Who, 
then, shall come in at this day and claim that he invented it? 

The Lecompton Constitution connects itself with this ques- 
tion, for it is in this matter of the Lecompton Constitution that 
our friend Judge Douglas claims such vast credit. I agree that in 
opposing the Lecompton Constitution, so far as I can perceive, he 
was right. I do not deny that at all ; and, gentlemen, you will 
readily see why I could not deny it, even if I wanted to. But I 
do not wish to ; for all the Republicans in the nation opposed it, 
and they would have opposed it just as much without Judge 
Douglas's aid as with it. They had all taken ground against it 
long before he did. Why, the reason that he urges against that 
Constitution, I urged against him a year before. I have the 
printed speech in my hand. The argument that he makes, why 
that Constitution should not be adopted, that the people were not 
fairly represented nor allowed to vote, I pointed out in a speech 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 25 

a year ago, which I hold in my hand now, that no fair chance 
was to be given to the people. ["Read it, Read it."] I shall not 
waste your time by trying to read it. ["Read it, Read it."] 
Gentlemen, reading from speeches is a very tedious business, 
particularly for an old man that has to put on spectacles, and 
more so if the man be so tall that he has to bend over to the light. 

A little more, now, as to this matter of Popular Sovereignty 
and the Lecompton Constitution. The Lecompton Constitution, 
as the Judge tells us, was defeated. The defeat of it was a good 
thing or it was not. He thinks the defeat of it was a good thing, 
and so do I, and we agree in that. Who defeated it? 

A voice : Judge Douglas. 

Mr. Lincoln : Yes, he furnished himself, and if you suppose 
he controlled the other Democrats that went with him, he fur- 
nished three votes ; while the Republicans furnished twenty. 

That is what he did to defeat it. In the House of Repre- 
sentatives he and his friends furnished some twenty votes, and 
the Republicans furnished ninety odd. Now, who was it that did 
the work? 

A voice : Douglas. 

Mr. Lincoln : Why, yes, Douglas did it ! To be sure he did. 

Let us, however, put that proposition another way. The 
Republicans could not have done it without Judge Douglas. 
Could he have done it without them? Which could have come 
the nearest to doing it without the other? 

A voice : Who killed the bill? 

Another voice : Douglas. 

Mr. Lincoln : Ground was taken against it by the Republi- 
cans long before Douglas did it. The proportion of opposition 
to that measure is about five to one. 

A voice : Why don't they come out on it? 

Mr. Lincoln : You don't know what you are talking about, 
my friend. I am quite willing to answer any gentleman in the 
crowd who asks an intelligent question. 

Now, who in all this country has ever found any of our 
friends of Judge Douglas's way of thinking, and who have acted 
upon this main question, that has ever thought of uttering a word 
in behalf of Judge Trumbull ? 

A voice : We have. 

Mr. Lincoln : I defy you to show a printed resolution passed 
in a Democratic meeting — I take it upon myself to defy any man 
to show a printed resolution of a Democratic meeting, large or 
small — in favor of Judge Trumbull, or any of the five to one 
Republicans who beat that bill. Everything must be for the 
Democrats ! They did everything, and the five to the one that 
really did the thing they snub over, and they do not seem to 
remember that they have an existence upon the face of the earth. 



26 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Gentlemen, I fear that I shall become tedious. I leave this 
branch of the subject to take hold of another. I take up that 
part of Judge Douglas's speech in which he respectfully attended 
to me. 

Judge Douglas made two points upon my recent speech at 
Springfield. He says they are to be the issues of this campaign. 
The first one of these points he bases upon the language in a 
speech which I delivered at Springfield, which I believe I can 
quote correctly from memory. I said there that " we are now 
far into the fifth year since a policy was instituted for the avowed 
object, and with the confident promise, of putting an end to 
slavery agitation ; under the operation of that policy, that agita- 
tion had not only not ceased, but had constantly augmented." 
" I believe it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and 
passed. 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe 
this Government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half 
free." " I do not expect the Union to be dissolved," — I am quot- 
ing from my speech, — " I do not expect the house to fall, but I do 
expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing 
or the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the 
spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest, in the 
belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates 
will push it forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the 
States, North as well as South." 

What is the paragraph? In this paragraph, which I have 
quoted in your hearing, and to which I ask the attention of all, 
Judge Douglas thinks he discovers great political heres}'. I want 
your attention particularly to what he has inferred from it. He 
says I am in favor of making all the States of this Union uniform 
in all their internal regulations ; that in all their domestic concerns 
I am in favor of making them entirely uniform. He draws this 
inference from the language I have quoted to you. He says that 
I am in favor of making war by the North upon the South for 
the extinction of slaver}^ ; that I am also in favor of inviting (as 
he expresses it) the South to a war upon the North for the 
purpose of nationalizing slavery. Now, it is singular enough, if 
you will carefully read that passage over, that I did not say that 
I was in favor of anything in it. I only said what I expected 
would take place. I made a prediction only, — it may have been 
a foolish one, perhaps. I did not even say that I desired that 
slavery should be put in course of ultimate extinction. I do say 
so now, however, so there need be no longer any difficult}'- about 
that. It may be written down in the great speech. 

Gentlemen, Judge Douglas informed you that this speech of 
mine was probably carefully prepared. I admit that it was. I am not 
master of language ; I have not a fine education ; I am not capable 
of entering into a disquisition upon dialectics, as I believe you 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 27 

call it ; but I do not believe the language I employed bears any- 
such construction as Judge Douglas puts upon it. But I don't 
care about a quibble in regard to words. I know what I meant, 
and I will not leave this crowd in doubt, if I can explain it to 
them, what I really meant in the use of that paragraph. 

I am not, in the first place, unaware that this Government 
has endured eighty-two years half slave and half free. I know 
that. I am tolerably well acquainted with the history of the 
country, and I know that it has endured eighty-two years half 
slave and half free. I believe — and that is what I meant to allude 
to there — I believe it has endured, because during all that time, 
until the introduction of the Nebraska bill, the public mind did 
rest all the time in the belief that slavery was in course of ultimate 
extinction. That was what gave us the rest that we had through 
that period of eighty-two years, — at least, so I believe. I have 
always hated slavery, I think, as much as any Abolitionist, — I 
have been an Old Line Whig, — I have always hated it ; but I 
have always been quiet about it until this new era of the intro- 
duction of the Nebraska bill began. I always believed that 
everybody was against it, and that it was in course of ultimate 
extinction. [Pointing to Mr. Browning, who stood near by.] 
Browning thought so ; the great mass of the nation have rested 
in the belief that slavery was in course of ultimate extinction. 
They had reason so to believe. 

The adoption of the Constitution and its attendant history 
led the people to believe so ; and that such was the belief of the 
framers of the Constitution itself, why did those old men, about 
the time of the adoption of the Constitution, decree that slavery 
should not go into the new Territory, where it had not already 
gone ? Why declare that within twenty years the African Slave 
Trade, by which slaves are supplied, might be cut off by 
Congress? Why were all these acts? I might enumerate more 
of these acts ; but enough. What were they but a clear indica- 
tion that the framers of the Constitution intended and expected 
the ultimate extinction of that institution ? And now, when I say, 
as I said in my speech, that Judge Douglas has quoted from, 
when I say that I think the opponents of slaver}'- will resist the 
farther spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall 
rest with the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction, I 
only mean to say that they will place it where the founders of 
this Government originally placed it. 

I have said a hundred times, and I have now no inclination 
to take it back, that I believe there is no right, and ought to be 
no inclination, in the people of the Free States to enter into the 
Slave States, and interfere with the question of slavery at all. 
I have said that always ; Judge Douglas has heard me say it, if not 
quite a hundred times, at least as good as a hundred times ; and 



28 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

when it is said that I am in favor of interfering with slavery where 
it exists,! know it is unwarranted by anything I have ever intended^ 
and, as I believe, by anything I have ever said. If, by any means, 
I have ever used language which could fairly be so construed 
(as, however, I believe I never have), I now correct it. 

So much, then, for the inference that Judge Douglas 
draws, that I am in favor of setting the sections at war with one 
another. I know that I never meant any such thing, and I 
believe that no fair mind can infer any such thing from anything 
I have ever said. 

Now, in relation to his inference that I am in favor of a 
general consolidation of all the local institutions of the various 
States. I will attend to that for a little while, and try to inquire, 
if I can, how on earth it could be that any man could draw such 
an inference from anything I said. I have said, very many 
times, in Judge Douglas's hearing, that no man believed more 
than I in the principle of self-government ; that it lies at the 
bottom of all my ideas of just government, from beginning to 
end. I have denied that his use of that term applies properly. 
But for the thing itself, I deny that any man has ever gone ahead 
of me in his devotion to the principle, whatever he ma}- have done 
in efficiency in advocating it. I think that I have said it in your 
hearing, that I believe each individual is naturally entitled to do 
as he pleases with himself and the fruit of his labor, so far as it 
in no wise interferes with any other man's rights ; that each 
community, as a State, has a right to do exactly as it pleases 
with all the concerns within that State that interferes with 
the right of no other State ; and that the General Government, 
upon principle, has no right to interfere with anything other 
than that general class of things that does concern the whole. 
I have said that at all times. I have said, as illustrations, that I 
do not believe in the right of Illinois to interfere with the cran- 
berry laws of Indiana, the 03rster laws of Virginia, or the liquor 
laws of Maine. I have said these things over and over again, 
and I repeat them here as my sentiments. 

How is it, then, that Judge Douglas infers, because I hope to 
see slavery put where the public mind shall rest in the belief that 
it is in the course of ultimate extinction, that I am in favor of 
Illinois going over and interfering with the cranberry laws of 
Indiana? What can authorize him to draw any such inference? 
I suppose there might be one thing that at least enabled him to 
draw such an inference that would not be true with me or many 
others, that is, because he looks upon all this matter of slavery 
as an exceedingly little thing, — this matter of keeping one-sixth 
of the population of the whole nation in a state of oppression 
and tyranny unequaled in the world. He looks upon it as being 
an exceedingly little thing, — only equal to the question of the 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 29 

cranberry laws of Indiana ; as something having no moral 
question in it ; as something on a par with the question of 
whether a man shall pasture his land with cattle, or plant it with 
tobacco ; so little and so small a thing that he concludes, if I 
could desire that if anything should be done to bring about the 
ultimate extinction of that little thing, I must be in favor of 
bringing about an amalgamation of all the other little things in 
the Union. Now, it so happens — and there, I presume, is the 
foundation of this mistake — that the Judge thinks thus ; and it so 
happens that there is a vast portion ofthe American people that do 
not look upon that matter as being this very little thing. They 
look upon it as a vast moral evil ; they can prove it as such by 
the writings of those who gave us the blessings of liberty which 
we enjoy, and that they so looked upon it, and not as an evil 
merely confining itself to the States where it is situated ; and 
while we agree that, by the Constitution we assented to, in the 
States where it exists, we have no right to interfere with it, 
because it is in the Constitution ; and we are by both duty and 
inclination to stick by that Constitution, in all its letter and spirit, 
from beginning to end. 

So much, then, as to my disposition — my wish — to have all 
the State Legislatures blotted out, and to have one consolidated 
government, and a uniformity of domestic regulations in all the 
States, by which I suppose it is meant, if we raise corn here, we 
must make sugar-cane grow here too, and we must make those 
which grow North grow in the South. All this I suppose he 
understands I am in favor of doing. Now, so much for all this 
nonsense ; for I must call it so. The Judge can have no issue 
with me on a question of establishing uniformity in the domestic 
regulations of the States. 

A little now on the other point, — the Dred Scott decision. 
Another of the issues he says that is to be made with me is upon 
his devotion to the Dred Scott decision, and my opposition to it. 

I have expressed heretofore, and I now repeat, my opposi- 
tion to the Dred Scott decision ; but I should be allowed to state 
the nature of that opposition,^ and I ask your indulgence while I 
do so. What is fairly implied by the term Judge Douglas has 
used, "resistance to the decision"? I do not resist it. If I 
wanted to ^ake Dred Scott from his master, I would be interfer- 
ing with property, and that terrible difficulty that Judge Douglas 
speaks of, of interfering with property, would arise. But I am 
doing no such thing as that, but all that I am doing is refusing 
to obey it as a political rule. If I were in Congress, and a vote 
should come up on a question whether slavery should be pro- 
hibited in a new Territory, in spite ofthe Dred Scott decision, I 
would vote that it should. 

That is what I should do. Judge Douglas said last night 



30 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

that defore the decision he might advance his opinion, and it 
might be contrary to the decision when it was made ; but after 
it was made he would abide by it until it was reversed. Just so ! 
We let this property abide by the decision, but we will try to 
reverse that decision. We will try to put it where Judge Douglas 
would not object, for he says he will obey it until it is reversed. 
Somebody has to reverse that decision, since it is made, and we 
mean to reverse it, and we mean to do it peaceably. 

What are the uses of decisions of courts? They have two 
uses. As rules of property they have two uses. First, they 
decide upon the question before the court. They decide in this 
case that Dred Scott is a slave. Nobody resists that. Not only 
that, but they say to everybody else, that persons standing just as 
Dred Scott stands, is as he is. That is, they say that when a 
question comes up upon another person, it will be so decided 
again, unless the court decides in another way, unless the court 
overrules its decision. Well, we mean to do what we can to 
have the court decide the other way. That is one thing we mean 
to try to do. 

The sacredness that Judge Douglas throws around this de- 
cision is a degree of sacredness that has never been before thrown 
around any other decision. I have never heard of such a thing. 
Why, decisions apparently contrary to that decision, or that good 
lawyers thought were contrary to that decision, have been made 
by that very court before. It is the first of its kind ; it is an 
astonisher in legal history. It is a new wonder of the world. It 
is based upon falsehood in the main as to the facts ; allegations 
of facts upon which it stands are not facts at all in many instances, 
and no decision made on any question — the first instance of a 
decision made under so many unfavorable circumstances — thus 
placed, has ever been held by the profession as law, and it has 
always needed confirmation before the lawj^ers regarded it as 
settled law. But Judge Douglas will have it that all hands must 
take this extraordinary decision, made under these extraordinary 
circumstances, and give their vote in Congress in accordance 
with it, yield to it, and obey it in every possible sense. Circum- 
stances alter cases. Do not gentlemen here remember the case 
of that same Supreme Court, some twenty-five or thirty years ago 
deciding that a National Bank was constitutional? I ask, if 
somebody does not remember that a National Bank was declared 
to be constitutional? Such is the truth, whether it be remem- 
bered or not. The Bank charter ran out, and a re-charter was 
granted by Congress. That re-charter was laid before General 
Jackson. It was urged upon him, when he denied the constitu- 
tionality of the Bank, that the Supreme Court had decided that 
it was constitutional ; and that General Jackson then said that 
the Supreme Court had no right to lay down a rule to govern a 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 31 

co-ordinate branch of the Government, the members of which 
had sworn to support the Constitution ; that each member had 
sworn to support that Constitution as he understood it. I will 
venture here to say that I have heard Judge Douglas say that 
he approved of General Jackson for that act. What has now 
become of all his tirade about "resistance to the Supreme 
Court"? 

My fellow-citizens, getting back a little, — for I pass from 
these points, — when Judge Douglas makes his threat of annihila- 
tion upon the " alliance," he is cautious to say that that warfare 
of his is to fall upon the leaders of the Republican party. Almost 
every word he utters, and every distinction he makes, has its 
significance. He means for the Republicans who do not count 
themselves as leaders, to be his friends ; he makes no fuss over 
them ; it is the leaders that he is making war upon. He wants 
it understood that the mass of the Republican party are really 
his friends. It is only the leaders that are doing something, that 
are intolerant, and that require extermination at his hands. As 
this is clearly and unquestionabl}'- the light in which he presents 
that matter, I want to ask your attention, addressing myself to 
the Republicans here, that I may ask you some questions as to 
where you, as the Republican party, would be placed if you 
sustained Judge Douglas in his present position by a re-election? 
I do not claim, gentlemen, to be unselfish ; I do not pretend 
that I would not like to go to the United States Senate, — I make 
no such hypocritical pretence ; but I do say to you that in this 
mighty issue it is nothing to you — nothing to the mass of the 
people of the nation, — whether or not Judge Douglas or myself 
shall ever be heard of after this night ; it may be a trifle to either 
of us, but in connection with this mighty question, upon which 
hang the destinies of the nation, perhaps, it is absolutely nothing : 
but where will you be placed if you re-indorse Judge Douglas? 
Don't you know how apt he is, how exceedingly anxious he is at 
all times, to seize upon anything and everything to persuade you 
that something he has done j'C?^ did yourselves? Why, he tried 
to persuade you last night that our Illinois Legislature instructed 
him to introduce the Nebraska bill. There was nobody in that 
Legislature ever thought of such a thing ; and when he first 
introduced the bill, he never thought of it ; but still he fights 
furiously for the proposition, and that he did it because there was 
a standing instruction to our Senators to be always introducing 
Nebraska bills. He tells you he is for the Cincinnati platform, 
he tells you he is for the Dred Scott decision. He tells you, 
not in his speech last night, but substantially in a former speech, 
that he cares not if slavery is voted up or down ; he tells you the 
struggle on Lecompton is past ; it may come up again or not, 
and if it does, he stands where he stood when, in spite of him and 



32 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

his opposition, you built up the Republican part}^ If you indorse 
him, you tell him you do not care whether slavery be voted up 
or down, and he will close, or try to close your mouths with his 
declaration, repeated by the day, the week, the month, and the 
year. Is that what you mean? [Cries of "No," one voice 
"Yes."] Yes, I have no doubt you who have always been for 
him, if you mean that. No doubt of that, soberly I have said, 
and I repeat it. I think, in the position in which Judge Douglas 
stood in opposing the Lecompton Constitution, he was right ; he 
does not know that it will return, but if it does we may know 
where to find him, and if it does not, we may know where to 
look for him, and that is on the Cincinnati platform. Now, I 
could ask the Republican party, after all the hard names that 
Judge Douglas has called them by, — all his repeated charges of 
their inclination to marry with and hug negroes ; all his declara- 
tions of Black Republicanism : b}^ the way, we are improving, 
the black has got rubbed off, — but with all that, if he be indorsed 
by Republican votes, where do you stand? Plainly, you stand 
ready saddled, bridled, and harnessed, and waiting to be driven 
over to the slavery extension camp of the nation, — just ready to 
be driven over, tied together in a lot, to be driven over, every 
man with a rope around his neck, that halter being held by 
Judge Douglas. That is the question. If Republican men have 
been in earnest in what they have done, I think they had better 
not do it ; but I think that the Republican party is made up of 
those who, as far as they can peaceably, will oppose the exten- 
sion of slavery, and who will hope for its ultimate extinction. If 
they believe it is wrong in grasping up the new lands of the 
continent, and keeping them from the settlement of free white 
laborers, who want the land to bring up their families upon ; if 
they are in earnest, although they may make a mistake, they will 
grow restless, and the time will come when they will come back 
again and reorganize, if not by the same name, at least upon the 
same principles as their party now has. It is better then, to save 
the work while it is begun. You have done the labor ; maintain 
it, keep it. If men choose to serve you, go with them ; but as 
you have made up your organization upon principle, stand by it ; 
for, as surely as God reigns over you, and has inspired your 
mind, and given you a sense of propriety, and continues to give 
you hope, so surely will you still cling to these ideas, and you 
will at last come back again after your wanderings, merely to do 
your work over again. 

We were often, — more than once, at least, — in the course of 
Judge Douglas's speech last night, reminded that this government 
was made for white men ; that he believed it was made for white 
men. Well, that is putting it into a shape in which no one wants 
to deny it ; but the Judge then goes into his passion for drawing 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 33 

inferences that are not warranted. I protest, now and forever, 
against that counterfeit logic which presumes that because I did 
not want a negro woman for a slave, I do necessarily want her 
for a wife. My understanding is that I need not have her for 
either, but, as God made us separate, we can leave one another 
alone, and do one another much good thereby. There are white 
men enough to marry all the white women, and enough black 
men to marry all the black women ; and in God's name let them 
be so married. The Judge regales us with the terrible enormities 
that take place by the mixture of races ; that the inferior race 
bears the superior down. Why, Judge, if we do not let them 
get together in the Territories, they won't mix there. 

A voice : Three cheers for Lincoln. (The cheers were 
given with a hearty good will.) 

Mr. Lincoln : I should say at least that that is a self-evident 
truth. 

Now, it happens that we meet together once every year, 
sometimes about the 4th of July, for some reason or other. These 
4th of July gatherings I suppose have their uses. If you will 
indulge me, I will state what I suppose to be some of them. 

We are now a mighty nation ; we are thirty, or about thirty 
millions of people, and we own and inhabit about one-fifteenth 
part of the dry land of the whole earth. We run our memory 
back over the pages of history for about eighty-two years, and 
we discover that we were then a very small people in point of 
numbers, vastly inferior to what we are now, with a vastly less 
extent of country, with vastly less of ever^^thing we deem desir- 
able among men ; we look upon the change as exceedingly 
advantageous to us and to our posterity, and we fix upon some- 
thing that happened away back, as in some way or other being 
connected with this rise of prosperity. We find a race of men 
living in that day whom we claim as our fathers and grandfathers ; 
they were iron men ; they fought for the principle that they were 
contending for ; and we understood that by what they then did 
it has followed that the degree of prosperity which we now enjoy 
has come to us. We hold this annual celebration to remind our- 
selves of all the good done in this process of time, of how it was 
done and who did it, and how we are historically connected with 
it ; and we go from these meetings in better humor with ourselves, 
we feel more attached the one to the other, and more firmly 
bound to the country we inhabit. In every way we are better 
men in the age and race and country in which we live, for these 
celebrations. But after we have done all this we have not yet 
reached the whole. There is something else connected with it. 
We have — besides these, men descended by blood from our 
ancestors — among us, perhaps half our people, who are not 
descendants at all of these men ; they are men who have come 



34 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

from Europe, — German, Irish, French, and Scandinavian, — men 
that have come from Europe themselves, or whose ancestors 
have come hither and settled here, finding themselves our equals 
in all things. If they look back through this history to trace 
their connection with those days by blood, they find they have 
none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch 
and make themselves feel that they are part of us ; but when 
they look through that old Declaration of Independence, they 
find that those old men say that "We hold these truths to be 
self-evident, that all men are created equal ;" and then they feel 
that that moral sentiment, taught in that day, evidences their 
relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in 
them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were 
blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh, of the men who wrote 
that Declaration ; and so they are. That is the electric cord in 
that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty- 
loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long 
as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the 
world. 

Now, sirs, for the purpose of squaring things with this idea 
of " don't care if slavery is voted up or voted down," for sustain- 
ing the Dred Scott decision, for holding that the Declaration of 
Independence did not mean anything at all, we have Judge 
Douglas giving his exposition of what the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence means, and we have him saying that the people of 
America are equal to the people of England. According to his 
construction, you Germans are not connected with it. Now, I 
ask you in all soberness, if all these things, if indulged in, if 
ratified, if confirmed and indorsed, if taught to our children, and 
repeated to them, do not tend to rub out the sentiment of liberty 
in the countr}^ and to transform this government into a govern- 
jnent of some other form. Those arguments that are made, that 
the inferior race are to be treated with as much allowance as 
they are capable of enjoying ; that as much is to be done for 
them as their condition will allow. What are these arguments? 
They are the arguments that kings have made for enslaving the 
people in all ages of the world. You will find that all the argu- 
ments in favor of kingcraft were of this class ; they alwa3''S 
bestrode the necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, 
but because the people were better off" for being ridden. That 
is their argument, and this argument of the Judge is the same 
old serpent that says. You work, and I eat ; You toil, and I will 
enjoy the fruits of it. Turn in whatever way you will, whether 
it come from the mouth of a king, an excuse for enslaving the 
people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a 
reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same 
old serpent ; and I hold, if that course of argumentation that is 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 35 

made for the purpose of convincing the public mind that we 
should not care about this, should be granted, it does not stop 
with the negro. I should like to know if, taking this old 
Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are 
equal upon principle, and making exceptions to it, where will it 
stop? If one man says it does not mean a negro, why not 
another say it does not mean some other man? If that declara- 
tion is not the truth, let us get the statute book, in which we find 
it, and tear it out ! Who is so bold as to do it? If it is not true, 
let us tear it out ! [Cries of "No, no."] Let us stick to it, then ; 
let us stand firmly by it, then. 

It may be argued that there are certain conditions that make 
necessities and impose them upon us ; and to the extent that a 
necessity is imposed upon a man, he must submit to it. I think 
that was the condition in which we found ourselves when we es- 
tablished this government. We had slavery among us, we could 
not get our Constitution unless we permitted them to remain in 
slavery, we could not secure the good we did secure if we grasped 
for more ; and having by necessity submitted to that much, it 
does not destroy the principle that is the charter of our liberties. 
Let that charter stand as our standard. 

My friend has said to me that I am a poor hand to quote 
scripture. I will try it again, however. It is said in one of the 
admonitions of our Lord, " As your Father in heaven is perfect, 
be ye also perfect." The Saviour, I suppose, did not expect that 
any human creature could be perfect as the Father in heaven ; 
but he said : " As your Father in heaven is perfect, be ye also 
perfect." He set that up as a standard ; and he who did most 
toward reaching that standard, attained the highest degree of 
moral perfection. So I say in relation to the principle that all 
men are created equal, let it be as nearly reached as we can. If 
we cannot give freedom to every creature, let us do nothing that 
will impose slavery upon any other creature. Let us then turn 
this government back into the channel in which the framers of 
the Constitution originally placed it. Let us stand firmly by 
each other. If we do not do so, we are turning in the contrary 
direction, that our friend Judge Douglas proposes — not inten- 
tionally — as working in the traces tend to make this one uni- 
versal slave nation. He is one that runs in that direction, and as 
such I resist him. 

My friends, I have detained you about as long as I desired 
to do, and I have only to say. Let us discard all this quibbling •' 
about this man and the other man ; this race and that race and 
the other race being inferior, and therefore they must be placed 
in an inferior position ; discarding our standard that we have 
left us. Let us discard all these things, and unite as one people 
throughout this land, until we shall once more stand up declaring 
that all men are created equal. 



36 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

My friends, I could not, without launching off upon some 
new topic, which would detain you too long, continue to-night. 
I thank you for this most extensive audience that you have fur- 
nished me to-night. I leave you, hoping that the lamp of lib- 
erty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a 
doubt that all men are created free and equal. 



SPEECH OF SENATOR DOUGLAS. 

Delivered at Bloomington, III., July 16, 1858. (Mr. Lincoln 

was present.) 

Senator Douglas said : — 

Mr. Chairman, and Fellow-citizens of McLean County : 
To say that I am profoundly touched by the hearty welcome you 
have extended me, and by the kind and complimentar}'^ senti- 
ments you have expressed toward me, is but a feeble expression 
of the feelings of my heart. 

I appear before you this evening for the purpose of vindi- 
cating the course which I have felt it my duty to pursue in the 
Senate of the United States upon the great public questions 
which have agitated the countr}^ since I last addressed you. I 
am aware that my senatorial course has been arraigned, not only 
by political foes, but by a few men pretending to belong to the 
Democratic party, and yet acting in alliance with the enemies of 
that party, for the purpose of electing Republicans to Congress 
in this State, in place of the present Democratic delegation. I 
desire your attention whilst I address you, and then I will ask 
your verdict whether I have not in all things acted in entire good 
faith, and honestly carried out the principles, the professions, and 
the avowals which I made before my constituents previous to my 
going to the Senate. 

During the last session of Congress the great question of 
controversy has been the admission of Kansas into the Union 
under the Lecompton Constitution. I need not inform you that 
from the beginning to the end I took bold, determined, and unre- 
lenting ground in opposition to that Lecompton Constitution. 
My reason for that course is contained in the fact that that instru- 
ment was not the act and deed of the people of Kansas, and did 
not embody their will. I hold it to be a fundamental principle 
in all free governments — a principle asserted in the Declaration 
of Independence, and underlying the Constitution of the United 
States, as well as the Constitution of every State of the Union — 
that every people ought to have the right to form, adopt, and 
ratify the Constitution imder which they are to live. When I 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 37 

introduced the Nebraska bill in the Senate of the United States, 
in 1854, I incorporated in it the provision that it was the true 
intent and meaning of the bill, not to legislate slavery into any 
Territory or State, or to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the 
people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their own 
domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Con- 
stitution of the United States. In that bill the pledge was 
distinctly made that the people of Kansas should be left not only 
free, but perfectly free to form and regulate their own domestic 
institutions to suit themselves ; and the question arose, when the 
Lecompton Constitution was sent into Congress, and the admis- 
sion of Kansas not only asked, but attempted to be forced under 
it, whether or not that Constitution was the free act and deed of 
the people of Kansas? No man pretends that it embodied their 
will. Every man in America knows that it was rejected by 
the people of Kansas, by a majority of over ten thousand, before 
the attempt was made in Congress to force the Territory into 
the Union under that Constitution. I resisted, therefore, the 
Lecompton Constitution because it was a violation of the great 
principle of self-government, upon which all our institutions rest. 
I do not wish to mislead you, or to leave you in doubt as to the 
motives of my action. I did not oppose the Lecompton Consti- 
tution upon the ground of the slavery clause contained in it, I 
made my speech against that instrument before the vote was 
taken on the slavery clause. At the time I made it I did not 
know whether that clause would be voted in or out ; whether it 
would be included in the Constitution, or excluded from it ; and 
it made no difference with me what the result of the vote was, for 
the reason that I was contending for a principle, under which 
you have no more right to force a Free State upon a people 
against their will, than you have to force a Slave State upon 
them without their consent. The error consisted in attempting 
to control the free action of the people of Kansas in any respect 
whatever. It is no argument with me to say that such and such 
a clause of the Constitution was not palatable, that you did not 
like it; it is a matter of no consequence whether you in Illinois 
like any clause in the Kansas Constitution or not ; it is not a 
question for you, but it is a question for the people of Kansas. 
The}'^ have the right to make a Constitution in accordance with 
their own wishes, and if you do not like it, you are not bound to 
go there and live under it. We in Illinois have made a Constitu- 
tion to suit ourselves, and we think we have a tolerably good one ; 
but whether we have or not, it is nobody's business but our own. 
If the people in Kentucky do not like it, they need not come here 
to live under it ; If the people of Indiana are not satisfied with it, 
what matters it to us? We, and we alone, have the right to a 
voice in its adoption or rejection. Reasoning thus, my friends, 



38 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

my efforts were directed to the vindication of the great principle 
involving the right of the people of each State and each Territory 
to form and regulate their own domestic institutions to suit them- 
selves, subject only to the Constitution of our common country. 
I am rejoiced to be enabled to say to you that we fought that 
battle until we forced the advocates of the Lecompton instrument 
to abandon the attempt of inflicting it upon the people of Kansas, 
without first giving them an opportunity of rejecting it. When 
we compelled them to abandon that effort, they resorted to a 
scheme. They agreed to refer the Constitution back to the 
people of Kansas, thus conceding the correctness of the principle 
for which I had contended, and granting all I had desired, pro- 
vided the mode of that reference and the mode of submission to 
the people had been just, fair, and equal. I did not consider the 
mode of submission provided in what is known as the " English" 
bill a fair submission, and for this simple reason, among others : 
It provided, in effect, that if the people of Kansas w^ould accept 
the Lecompton Constitution, that they might come in with 35,000 
inhabitants ; but that, if they rejected it, in order that they might 
form a constitution agreeable to their own feelings, and conform- 
able to their own principles, that they should not be received 
into the Union until they had 93,420 inhabitants. In other 
words, it said to the people, — If you will comei into the Union 
as a slaveholding State, you shall be admitted wth 35,000 inhab- 
itants ; but if you insist on being a Free State, you shall not be 
admitted until you have 93,420. I was not willing to discrimi- 
nate between Free States and Slave States in this Confederacy. 
I will not put a restriction upon a Slave State that I would not 
put upon a Free State, and I will not permit, if I can prevent it, 
a restriction being put upon a Free State which is not applied 
with the same force to the slaveholding States. Equalit}^ among 
the States is a cardinal and fundamental principle in our Confed- 
eracy, and cannot be violated without overturning our system of 
government. Hence I demanded that the Free States and the 
slaveholding States should be kept on an exact equality, one with 
the other, as the Constitution of the United States had placed 
them. If the people of Kansas want a slaveholding State, let 
them have it ; and if the}'^ want a Free State they have a right to 
it ; and it is not for the people of Illinois, or Missouri, or New 
York, or Kentucky, to complain, whatever the decision of the 
people of Kansas may be upon that point. 

But while I was not content with the mode of submission 
contained in the English bill, and while I could not sanction it 
for the reason that, in my opinion, it violated t'ie great principle 
of equality among the different States, yet w^hen it became the 
law of the land, and under it the question was referred back to 
the people of Kansas for their decision, at an election to be held 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 39 

on the first Monday in August next, I bowed in deference, 
because whatever decision the people shall make at that election 
must be final, and conclusive of the whole question. If the 
people of Kansas accept the proposition submitted by Congress, 
from that moment Kansas will become a State of the Union, and 
there is no way of keeping her out if you should try. The act 
of admission would become irrepealable ; Kansas would be a 
State, and there would be an end of the controvers}' . On the 
other hand, if at that election the people of Kansas shall reject 
the proposition, as is now generally thought will be the case, 
from that moment the Lecompton Constitution is dead, and again 
there is an end of the controversy. So you see that either way, 
on the 3d of August next, the Lecompton controversy ceases 
and terminates forever ; and a similar question can never arise 
unless some man shall attempt to play the Lecompton game 
over again. But, my fellow-citizens, I am well convinced that 
that game will never be attempted again ; it has been so solemnly 
and thoroughl}'- rebuked during the last session of Congress that 
it will find but few advocates in the future. The President of 
the United States, in his annual message, expressly recommends 
that the example of the Minnesota case, wherein Congress 
required the Constitution to be submitted to the vote of the 
people for ratification or rejection, shall be followed in all future 
cases ; and all we have to do is to sustain as one man that 
recommendation, and the Kansas controversy can never again 
arise. 

My friends, I do not desire you to understand me as claim- 
ing for myself any special merit for the course I have pursued 
on this question. I simply did my duty, — a duty enjoined by 
fidelit}^, by honor, by patriotism ; a duty which I could not have 
shrunk from, in my opinion, without dishonor and faithlessness 
to my constituency. Besides, I only did what it was in the 
power of any one man to do. There were others, men of emi- 
nent ability, men of wide reputation, renowned all over America, 
who led the van, and are entitled to the greatest share of the 
credit. Foremost among them all, as he was head and shoulders 
above them all, was Kentucky's great and gallant statesman, 
John J. Crittenden. By his course upon this question he has 
shown himself a worth}'^ successor of the immortal Clay, and well 
may Kentucky be proud of him. I will not withhold, either, the 
meed of praise due the Republican party in Congress for the 
course which they pursued. In the language of the " New York 
Tribune," they came to the Douglas platform, abandoning their 
own, believing that under the peculiar circumstances they would 
in that mode best subserve the interests of the country. My 
friends, when I am battling for a great principle, I want aid and 
support from whatever quarter I can get it, in order to carry out 



40 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

that principle. I never hesitate in my course when I find those 
who on all former occasions differed from me upon the principle 
finally coming to its support. Nor is it for me to inquire into the 
motives which animated the Republican members of Congress in 
supporting the Crittenden-Montgomery bill. It is enough for 
me that in that case the}?" came square up and indorsed the great 
principle of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, which declared that Kan- 
sas should be received into the Union, with slavery or without, 
as its Constitution should prescribe. I was the more rejoiced at 
the action of the Republicans on that occasion for another reason. 
I could not forget, you will not soon forget, how unanimous that 
party was, in 1854, in declaring that never should another Slave 
State be admitted into this Union under any circumstances 
whatever ; and yet we find that during this last winter they came 
up and voted to a man, declaring that Kansas should come in as 
a State with slavery under the Lecompton Constitution, if her 
people desired it, and that if they did not, that they might form a 
new Constitution, with slavery or without, just as they pleased. 
I do not question the motive when men do a good act ; I give 
them credit for the act ; and if they will stand by that principle in 
the future, and abandon their heresy of " no more Slave States 
even if the people want them," I will then give them still 
more credit. I am afraid, though, that they will not stand by it 
in the future. If they do, I will freely forgive them all the abuse 
they heaped upon me in 1854 for having advocated and carried 
out that same principle in the Kansas-Nebraska bill. 

Illinois stands proudly forward as a State which early took 
her position in favor of the principle of popular sovereignty as 
applied to the Territories of the United States. When the Com- 
promise measure of 1850 passed, predicated upon that principle, 
you recollect the exitement which prevailed throughout the 
northern portion of this State. I vindicated those measures then, 
and defended myself for having voted for them, upon the ground 
that they embodied the principle that every people ought to have 
the privilege of forming and regulating their own institutions to 
suit themselves ; that each State had that right, and I saw no 
reason why it should not be extended to the Territories. When 
the people of Illinois had an opportunity of passing judgment 
upon those measures, they indorsed them by a vote of their rep- 
resentatives in the Legislature, — sixty-one in the affirmative, and 
only four in the negative, — in which they asserted that the 
principle embodied in the measures was the birthright of free- 
men, the gift of Heaven, a principle vindicated by our revolu- 
tionary fathers, and that no limitation should ever be placed 
upon it, either in the organization of a Territorial Government 
or the admission of a State into the Union. That resolution still 
stands unrepealed on the journals of the Legislature of Illinois. 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 41 

In obedience to it, and in exact conformity with the principle, I 
brought in the Kansas-Nebraska bill, requiring that the people 
should be left perfectly free in the formation of their institutions 
and in the organization of their government. I now submit to 
3'ou whether I have not in good faith redeemed that pledge, 
that the people of Kansas should be left perfectly free to form 
and regulate their institutions to suit themselves. And yet, 
while no man can arise in any crowd and deny that I have been 
faithful to my principles and redeemed my pledge, we find those 
who are struggling to crush and defeat me, for the very reason 
that I have been faithful in carrying out those measures. We 
find the Republican leaders forming an alliance with professed 
Lecompton men to defeat every Democratic nominee and elect 
Republicans in their places, and aiding and defending them in 
order to help them break down Anti-Lecompton men, whom they 
acknowledge did right in their opposition to Lecompton. The 
only hope that Mr. Lincoln has of defeating me for Senate rests 
in the fact that I was faithful to my principles and that he may 
be able in consequence of that fact to form a coalition with 
Lecompton men who wish to defeat me for that fidelity. 

This is one element of strength upon which he relies to 
accomplish his object. He hopes he can secure the few men 
claiming to be friends of the Lecompton Constitution, and for 
that reason you will find he does not say a word against the 
Lecompton Constitution or its supporters. He is as silent as the 
grave upon that subject. Behold Mr. Lincoln courting Lecomp- 
ton votes, in order that he may go to the Senate as the repre- 
sentative of Republican principles ! You know that the alliance 
exists. I think you will find that it will ooze out before the 
contest is over. 

Every Republican paper takes ground with my Lecompton 
enemies, encouraging them, stimulating them in their opposition 
to me, and styling my friends bolters from the Democratic party, 
and their Lecompton allies the true Democratic party of the 
countr}^ If they think that they can mislead and deceive the 
people of Illinois, or the Democracy of Illinois, by that sort of an 
unnatural and unholy alliance, I think they show very little 
sagacity, or give the people very little credit for intelligence. 
It must be a contest of principle. Either the radical Abolition 
principles of Mr. Lincoln must be maintained, or the strong, 
constitutional, national Democratic principles with which I am 
identified must be carried out. 

There can be but two great political parties in this country. 
The contest this year and in 1860 must necessarily be between 
the Democracy and the Republicans, if we can judge from present 
indications. My whole life has been identified with the Demo- 
cratic party. I have devoted all of my energies to advocating 



42 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

its principles and sustaining its organization. In this State the 
party was never better united or more harmonious than at this 
time. The State Convention which assembled on the 2d of April, 
and nominated Fondey and French, was regularly called by the 
State Central Committee, appointed by the previous State Con- 
vention for that purpose. The meetings in each county in the 
State for the appointment of delegates to the Convention were 
regularly called by the county committees, and the proceedings 
in every county in the State, as well as in the State Convention, 
were regular in all respects. No convention was ever more 
harmonious in its action, or showed a more tolerant and just 
spirit toward brother Democrats. The leaders of the party there 
assembled declared their unalterable attachment to the time- 
honored principles and organization of the Democratic party, 
and to the Cincinnati platform. They declared that that platform 
was the only authoritative exposition of Democratic principles, 
and that it must so stand until changed by another National Con- 
vention ; that in the mean time the}'^ would make no new tests, 
and submit to none ; that they would proscribe no Democrat or 
permit the proscription of Democrats because of their opinion 
upon Lecomptonism, or upon any other issue which has arisen, but 
would recognize all men as Democrats who remained inside of 
the organization, preserved the usages of the party, and supported 
its nominees. These bolting Democrats who now claim to be 
the peculiar friends of the National Administration, and have 
formed an alliance with Mr. Lincoln and the Republicans for 
the purpose of defeating the Democratic party, have ceased 
to claim fellowship with the Democratic organization, have 
entirely separated themselves from it, and are endeavoring to 
build up a faction in the State, not with the hope or expectation 
of electing any one man who professes to be a Democrat to office 
in an}' county in the State, but merely to secure the defeat of the 
Democratic nominees and the election of Republicans in their 
places. What excuse can any honest Democrat have for aban- 
doning the Democratic organization and joining with the Repub- 
licans to defeat our nominees, in view of the platform established 
by the State Convention? They cannot pretend that they were 
proscribed because of their opinions upon Lecompton or any 
other question, for the Convention expressly declared that they 
recognized all as good Democrats who remained inside of the 
organization and abided by the nominations. If the question is 
settled or is to be considered as finally disposed of by the vote 
on the 3d of August, what possible excuse can any good Demo- 
crat make for keeping up a division for the purpose of prostrat- 
ing his party, after that election is over and the controversy has 
terminated? It is evident that all who shall keep up this war- 
fare for the purpose of dividing and destroying the party have 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 43 

made up their minds to abandon the Democratic organization 
forever, and to join those for whose benefit they are now trying 
to distract our party, and elect Republicans in the place of the 
Democratic nominees. 

I submit the question to you whether I have been right or 
wrong in the course I have pursued in Congress. And I submit, 
also, whether I have not redeemed in good faith every pledge 
I have made to you. Then, my friends, the question recurs, 
whether I shall be sustained or rejected? If you are of opinion 
that Mr. Lincoln will advance the interests of Illinois better than 
I can ; that he will sustain her honor and her dignity higher than 
it has been in my power to do ; that your interests and the inter- 
ests of your children require his election instead of mine, it is 
your duty to give him your support. If, on the contrar}^ ^^ou 
think that my adherence to these great fundamental principles 
upon which our government is founded is the true mode of sus- 
taining the peace and harmony of the country, and maintaining 
the perpetuity of the Republic, I then ask you to stand by me in 
the efforts I have made to that end. 

And this brings me to the consideration of the two points at 
issue between Mr. Lincoln and mj'self. The Republican Con- 
vention, when it assembled at Springfield, did me and the coun- 
try the honor of indicating the man who was to be their standard- 
bearer, and the embodiment of their principles, in this State. I 
owe them my gratitude for thus making up a direct issue be- 
tween Mr. Lincoln and myself. I shall have no controversies of 
a personal character with Mr. Lincoln. I have known him well 
for a quarter of a century. I have known him, as you all know 
him, a kind-hearted, amiable gentleman, a right good fellow, a 
worthy citizen, of eminent ability as a lawyer, and, I have no 
doubt, sufficient ability to make a good Senator. The question, 
then, for you to decide is, whether his principles are more in ac- 
cordance with the genius of our free institutions, the peace and 
harmony of the Republic, than those which I advocate. He tells 
you, in his speech made at Springfield, before the Convention 
which gave him his unanimous nomination, that, — 

" A house divided against itself cannot stand." 

" I believe this government cannot endure permanently, half 
slave and half free." 

" I do not expect the Union to be dissolved, I don't expect the 
house to fall ; but I do expect it will cease to be divided." 

" It will become all one thing or all the other." 

That is the fundamental principle upon which he sets out in 
this campaign. Well, I do not suppose you will believe one 
word of it when you come to examine it carefully, and see its 
consequences. Although the Republic has existed from 1789 to 
this da}^ divided into Free States and Slave States, yet we are 



44 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

told that in the future it cannot endure unless they shall become 
all free or all slave. For that reason, he says, as the gentleman 
in the crowd says, that they must be all free. He wishes to go 
to the Senate of the United States in order to carry out that line 
of public policy, which will compel all the States in the South to 
become free. How is he going to do it? Has Congress any 
power over the subject of slavery in Kentuck}^, or Virginia, or 
any other State of this Union? How, then, is Mr. Lincoln going 
to carry out that principle which he says is essential to the exist- 
ence of this Union, to-wit : That slavery must be abolished in 
all the States of the Union, or must be established in them all? 
You convince the South that the}^ must either establish slavery in 
Illinois, and in every other Free State, or submit to its abolition 
in every Southern State, and you invite them to make a warfare 
upon the Northern States in order to establish slavery, for the 
sake of perpetuating it at home. Thus, Mr. Lincoln invites, by 
his proposition, a war of sections, a war between Illinois and 
Kentucky, a war between the Free States and the Slave States, a 
war between the North and the South, for the purpose of either 
exterminating slavery in every Southern State, or planting it in 
every Northern State. He tells you that the safety of this Re- 
public, that the existence of this Union, depends upon that war- 
fare beinof carried on until one section or the other shall be 
entirely subdued. The States must all be free or slave, for a house 
divided against itself cannot stand. That is Mr. Lincoln's argu- 
ment upon that question. My friends, is it possible to preserve 
peace between the North and the South if such a doctrine shall 
prevail in either section of the Union? Will you ever submit 
to a warfare waged by the Southern States to establish slavery 
in Illinois? What man in Illinois would not lose the last drop 
of his heart's blood before he would submit to the institution of 
slavery being forced upon us by the other States, against our 
will? And if that be true of us, what Southern man would not 
shed the last drop of his heart's blood to prevent Illinois, or any 
other Northern State, from interfering to abolish slavery in his 
State? Each of these States is sovereign under the Constitu- 
tion ; and if we wish to preserve our liberties, the reserved rights 
and sovereignty of each and every State must be maintained. 
I have said on a former occasion, and I here repeat, that it is 
neither desirable nor possible to establish uniformit}'- in the local 
and domestic institutions of all the States of this Confederac3^ 
And why? Because the Constitution of the United States rests 
upon the right of every State to decide all its local and domestic 
institutions for itself. It is not possible, therefore, to make them 
conform to each other, unless we subvert the Constitution of the 
United States. No, sir, that cannot be done. God forbid that 
any man should ever make the attempt. Let that Constitution 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 45 

ever be trodden under foot and destroyed, and there will not be 
wisdom and patriotism enough left to make another that will 
work half so well. Our safety, our liberty, depends upon pre- 
serving the Constitution of the United States as our fathers made 
it, inviolate, at the same time maintaining the reserved rights and 
the sovereignty^ of each State over its local and domestic institu- 
tions, against Federal authority, or any outside interference. 

The difference between Mr. Lincoln and myself upon this 
point is, that he goes for a combination of the Northern States, 
or the organization of a sectional political party in the Free 
States, to make war on the domestic institutions of the Southern 
States, and to prosecute that war until they shall all be 
subdued, and made to conform to such rules as the North 
shall dictate to them. I am aware that Mr. Lincoln, on 
Saturday night last, made a speech at Chicago, for the 
purpose, as he said, of explaining his position on this question. 
I have read that speech with great care, and will do him 
the justice to say that it is marked by eminent abilit}^ and 
great success in concealing what he did mean to say in his 
Springfield speech. His answer to this point, which I have been 
arguing, is, that he never did mean, and that I ought to know 
that he never intended to convey the idea, that he wished the 
" people of the Free States to entei' into the Southern States, and 
interfere with slavery." Well, I never did suppose that he ever 
dreamed of entering into Kentucky to make war upon her insti- 
tutions ; nor will any Abolitionist ever enter into Kentucky to 
wage such war. Their mode of making war is not to enter 
into those States where slavery exists, and there interfere, 
and render themselves responsible for the consequences. Oh, 
no ! They stand on this side of the Ohio River and shoot 
across. They stand in Bloomington, and shake their fists at 
the people of Lexington ; they threaten South Carolina from 
Chicago. And they call that bravery ! But they are very 
particular, as Mr. Lincoln says, not to enter into those States for 
the purpose of interfering with the institution of slaver}"- there. I 
am not only opposed to entering into the Slave States, for the pur- 
pose of interfering with their institutions, but I am opposed to a 
sectional agitation to control the institutions of other States. I 
am opposed to organizing a sectional party, which appeals to 
Northern pride, and Northern passion and prejudice, against 
Southern institutions, thus stirring up ill-feeling and hot blood 
between brethren of the same Republic. I am opposed to that 
whole system of sectional agitation, which can produce nothing 
but strife, but discord, but hostilit}'', and, finally, disunion. And 
yet Mr. Lincoln asks you to send him to the Senate of the United 
States, in order that he may carry out that great principle of his, 
that all the States must be slave, or all must be free. I repeat, 



46 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

how is he to carry it out when he gets to the Senate? Does he 
intend to introduce a bill to abolish slavery in Kentucky? Does 
he intend to introduce a bill to interfere with slavery in Virginia? 
How is he to accomplish what he professes must be done in 
order to save the Union? Mr. Lincoln is a lawyer, sagacious 
and able enough to tell you how he proposes to do it. I ask Mr. 
Lincoln how it is that he proposes ultimately to bring about this 
uniformity in each and all the States of the Union. There is but 
one possible mode which I can see, and perhaps Mr. Lincoln 
intends to pursue it ; that is, to introduce a proposition into the 
Senate to change the Constitution of the United States, in order 
that all the State Legislatures may be abolished. State 
sovereignty blotted out, and the power conferred upon Congress 
to make local laws and establish the domestic institutions and 
police regulations uniformly throughout the United States. Are 
you prepared for such a change in the institutions of your 
country? Whenever you shall have blotted out the State 
sovereignties, abolished the State Legislatures, and consolidated 
all the power in the Federal Government, you will have estab- 
lished a consolidated Empire as destructive to the liberties of the 
people and the rights of the citizen as that of Austria, or Russia, 
or any other despotism that rests upon the necks of the people. 
How is it possible for Mr. Lincoln to carry out his cherished 
principle of abolishing slavery everywhere or establishing it 
everywhere, except by the mode which I have pointed out, — 
by an amendment to the Constitution to the effect that I have 
suggested? There is no other possible mode. Mr. Lincoln 
intends resorting to that, or else he means nothing by the great 
principle upon which he desires to be elected. My friends, I 
trust that we will be able to get him to define what he does 
mean by this scriptural quotation that " A house divided against 
itself cannot stand ;" that the government cannot endure 
permanently, half slave and half free ; that it must be all one 
thing, or all the other. Who among you expects to live, or have 
his children live, until slavery shall be established in Illinois or 
abolished in South Carolina? Who expects to see that occur 
during the life-time of ourselves or our children ? 

There is but one possible way in which slavery can be 
abolished, and that is by leaving a State, according to the 
principle of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, perfectly free to form and 
regulate its institutions in its own way. That was the principle 
upon v^'hich this Republic was founded, and it is under the 
operation of that principle that we have been able to preserve 
the Union thus far. Under its operations, slavery disappeared 
from New Hampshire, from Rhode Island, from Connecticut, 
from New York, from New Jersey, from Pennsylvania, from six 
of the twelve original slaveholding States ; and this gradual 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 47 

system of emancipation went on quietly, peacefully, and steadily, 
so long as we in the Free States minded our own business and 
left our neighbors alone. But the moment the abolition societies 
were organized throughout the North, preaching a violent cru- 
sade against slavery in the Southern States, this combination 
necessarily caused a counter-combination in the South, and a 
sectional line was drawn which was a barrier to any further 
emancipation. Bear in mind that emancipation has not taken 
place in any one State since the Free-soil party was organized 
as a political party in this country. Emancipation went on 
gradually in State after State so long as the Free States were 
content with managing their own affairs and leaving the South 
perfectly free to do as they pleased ; but the moment the North 
said. We are powerful enough to control you of the South, the 
moment the North proclaimed itself the determined master of the 
South, that moment the South combined to resist the attack, and 
thus sectional parties were formed, and gradual emancipation 
ceased in all the Northern slaveholding States. And yet Mr. 
Lincoln, in view of these historical facts, proposes to keep up 
this sectional agitation, band all the Northern States together in 
one political party, elect a President by Northern votes alone, 
and then, of course, make a cabinet composed of Northern men, 
and administer the government by Northern men onl3^ denying 
all the Southern States of this Union any participation in the 
administration of affairs whatsoever. I submit to you, my fellow- 
citizens, whether such a line of policy is consistent with the 
peace and harmony of the country? Can the Union endure under 
such a system of policy? He has taken his position in favor of 
sectional agitation and sectional warfare. I have taken mine in 
favor of securing peace, harmony, and good-will among all the 
States, b}^ permitting each to mind its own business, and dis- 
countenancing any attempt at interference on the part of one 
State with the domestic concerns of the others. 

Mr. Lincoln makes another issue with me, and he wishes to 
confine the contest to these two issues. I accept the other as 
readily as the one to which I have already referred. The other 
issue is a crusade against the Supreme Court of the United 
States, because of its decision in the Dred Scott case. My 
fellow-citizens, I have no issue to make with the Supreme Court. 
I have no crusade to preach against that august body. I have 
no warfare to make upon it. I receive the decision of the Judges 
of that Court, when pronounced, as the final adjudication upon 
all questions within their jurisdiction. It would be perfectly 
legitimate and proper for Mr. Lincoln, myself, or any other 
lawyer, to go before the Supreme Court and argue any question 
that might arise there, taking either side of it, and enforcing it 
with all our ability, zeal, and energ}^ ; but when the decision is 



48 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

pronounced, that decision becomes the law of the land, and he, 
and you, and myself, and every other good citizen, must bow to 
it, and yield obedience to it. Unless we respect and bow in 
deference to the final decisions of the highest judicial tribunal in 
our country, we are driven at once to anarchy, to violence, to 
mob law, and there is no security left for our property or our 
own civil rights. What protects your property but the law, and 
who expounds the law but the judicial tribunals ; and if an appeal 
is to be taken from the decisions of the Supreme Court of the 
United States in all cases where a person does not like the adju- 
dication, to whom is that appeal to be taken? Are we to appeal 
from the Supreme Court to a county -meeting like this? And 
shall we here re-argue the question and reverse the decision? If 
so, how are we to enforce our decrees after we have pronounced 
them? Does Mr. Lincoln intend to appeal from the decision of 
the Supreme Court to a Republican caucus, or a town meeting? 
To whom is he going to appeal? ["To Lovejoy," and shouts of 
laughter.] Why, if I understand aright, Lincoln and Lovejoy 
are co-appellants in a joint suit, and inasmuch as they are so, he 
would not certainly appeal from the Supreme Court to his own 
partner to decide the case for him. 

Mr. Lincoln tells you that he is opposed to the decision of 
the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case. Well, suppose he is ; 
what is he going to do about it? I never got beat in a law suit 
in my life that I was not opposed to the decision ; and if I had it 
before the Circuit Court I took it up to the Supreme Court, 
where, if I got beat again, I thought it better to say no more 
about it, as I did not know of any lawful mode of reversing the 
decision of the highest tribunal on earth. To whom is Mr. Lincoln 
going to appeal? Why, he says he is going to appeal to Con- 
gress. Let us see how he will appeal to Congress. He tells us 
that on the 8th of March, 1820, Congress passed a law called the 
Missouri Compromise, prohibiting slavery forever in all the 
territory west of the Mississippi and north of the Missouri line of 
thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes, that Dred Scott, a slave in 
Missouri, was taken by his master to Fort Snelling, in the present 
State of Minnesota, situated on the west branch of the Missis- 
sippi River, and consequently in the Territory where slavery was 
prohibited by the Act of 1820, and that when Dred Scott appealed 
for his freedom in consequence of having been taken into a free 
Territory, the Supreme Court of the United States decided that 
Dred Scott did not become free by being taken into that Territory, 
but that having been carried back to Missouri, was yet a slave. 
Mr. Lincoln is going to appeal from that decision and reverse it. 
He does not intend to reverse it as to Dred Scott. Oh, no ! But 
he will reverse it so that it shall not stand as a rule in the future. 
How will he do it? He says that if he is elected to the Senate, 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 49 

he will introduce and pass a law just like the Missouri Com- 
promise, prohibiting slavery again in all the Territories. Sup- 
pose, he does re-enact the same law which the Court has pro- 
nounced unconstitutional, will that make it constitutional? If 
the Act of 1820 was unconstitutional, in consequence of Congress 
having no power to pass it, will Mr. Lincoln make it constitu- 
tional by passing it again? What clause of the Constitution of 
the United States provides for an appeal from the decision of the 
Supreme Court to Congress? If my reading of that instrument 
is correct, it is to the effect that that Constitution and all laws 
made in pursuance of it are of the supreme law of the land, any- 
thing in the Constitution or laws of a State to the contrary 
notwithstanding. Hence, you will find that only such Acts of 
Congress are laws as are made in pursuance of the Constitution. 
When Congress has passed an Act, and put it on the statute 
book as law, who is to decide whether that Act is in conformity 
with the Constitution or not? The Constitution of the United 
States tells you. It has provided that the judicial power of the 
United States shall be vested in a Supreme Court, and such inferior 
Courts as Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. 
Thus, by the Constitution, the Supreme Court is declared, in so 
many words, to be the tribunal, and the only tribunal, which is 
competent to adjudicate upon the constitutionality of an Act of 
Congress. He tells you that that Court has adjudicated the 
question, and decided that an Act of Congress prohibiting slavery 
in the Territory is unconstitutional and void ; and yet he says he 
is going to pass another like it. What for? Will it be any more 
valid? Will he be able to convince the Court that the second 
Act is valid when the first is invalid and void? What good does 
it do to pass a second Act? Why, it will have the effect to arraign 
the Supreme Court before the people, and to bring them into all 
the political discussions of the country. Will that do any good? 
Will it inspire any more confidence in the judicial tribunals of the 
country? What good can it do to wage this war upon the Court, 
arraying it against Congress, and Congress against the Court? 
The Constitution of the United States has said that this govern- 
ment shall be divided into three separate and distinct branches, — 
the executive, the legislative, and the judicial ; and of course each 
one is supreme and independent of the other within the circle of 
its own powers. The functions of Congress are to enact the 
statutes, the province of the Court is to pronounce upon their 
validity, and the duty of the Executive is to carry the decision 
into effect when rendered by the Court. And yet, notwith- 
standing the Constitution makes the decision of the Court final in 
regard to the validity of an Act of Congress, Mr. Lincoln is going 
to reverse that decision by passing another Act of Congress. 

When he has become convinced of the folly of the proposi- 



50 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

tion, perhaps he will resort to the same subterfuge that I have 
found others of his party resort to, which is to agitate and agitate 
until he can change the Supreme Court and put other men in the 
places of the present incumbents. I wonder whether Mr. Lin- 
coln is right sure that he can accomplish that reform. He cer- 
tainly will not be able to get rid of the present Judges until they 
die, and from present appearances I think they have as good 
security of life as he has himself. I am afraid that my friend Lin- 
coln would not accomplish this task during his own lifetime, and yet 
he wants to go to Congress to do all this in six years. Do you think 
that he can persuade nine Judges, or a majority of them, to die 
in that six years, just to accommodate him? They are appointed 
Judges for life, and according to the present organization, new 
ones cannot be appointed during that time ; but he is going to 
agitate until they die, and then have the President appoint good 
Republicans in their places. He had better be quite sure that he 
gets a Republican President at the same time to appoint them. 
He wants to have a Republican President elected by Northern 
votes, not a Southern man participating, and elected for the pur- 
pose of placing none but Republicans on the bench ; and, conse- 
quently, if he succeeds in electing that President, and succeeds 
in persuading the present Judges to die, in order that their 
vacancies may be filled, that the President will then appoint their 
successors. And by what process will he appoint them? He 
first looks for a man who has the legal qualifications, perhaps he 
takes Mr. Lincoln, and says, "Mr. Lincoln, would you not like to 
go on the Supreme bench?" "Yes," replies Mr. Lincoln. 
"Well," returns the Republican President, "I cannot appoint you 
until you give me a pledge as to how you will decide in the event 
of a particular question coming before you." What would you 
think of Mr. Lincoln if he would consent to give that pledge? 
And yet he is going to prosecute a war until he gets the present 
Judges out, and then catechise each man and require a pledge 
before his appointment as to how he will decide each question 
that may arise upon points affecting the Republican party. 

Now, my friends, suppose this scheme was practical, I ask 
you what confidence you would have in a Court thus constituted, 
— a Court composed of partisan Judges, appointed on political 
grounds, selected with a view to the decision of questions in a 
particular way, and pledged in regard to a decision before the 
argument, and without reference to the peculiar state of the 
facts. Would such a Court command the respect of the country? 
If the Republican party cannot trust Democratic Judges, how 
can they expect us to trust Republican Judges, when they have 
been selected in advance for the purpose of packing a decision 
in the event of a case arising? My fellow-citizens, whenever 
partisan politics shall be carried on to the bench ; whenever the 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 51 

Judges shall be arraigned upon the stump, and their judicial 
conduct reviewed in town meetings and caucuses ; whenever the 
independence and integrity of the judiciary shall be tampered 
with to the extent of rendering them partial, blind, and suppliant 
tools, what security will you have for your rights and your 
liberties? I therefore take issue with Mr. Lincoln directly in 
regard to this warfare upon the Supreme Court of the United 
States. I accept the decision of that Court as it was pronounced. 
Whatever my individual opinions may be, I, as a good citizen, 
am bound by the laws of the land, as the Legislature makes 
them, as the Court expounds them, and as the executive officers 
administer them. I am bound by our Constitution as our fathers 
made it, and as it is our duty to support it. I am bound, as a 
good citizen, to sustain the constituted authorities, and to resist, 
discourage, and beat down, by all lawful and peaceful means, all 
attempts at exciting mobs, or violence, or an}^ other revolutionary 
proceedings against the Constitution and the constituted author- 
ities of the country. 

Mr. Lincoln is alarmed for fear that, under the Dred Scott 
decision, slaver}^ will go into all the Territories of the United 
States. All I have to say is that, with or without that decision, 
slavery will go just where the people want it, and not one inch 
further. You have had experience upon that subject in the case 
of Kansas. You have been told by the Republican party that, 
from 1854, when the Kansas-Nebraska bill passed, down to last 
winter, that slavery was sustained and supported in Kansas by 
the laws of what they called a " bogus " Legislature. And how 
many slaves were there in the Territory at the end of last winter? 
Not as many at the end of that period as there were on the day 
the Kansas-Nebraska bill passed. There was quite a number of 
slaves in Kansas, taken there under the Missouri Compromise, 
and in spite of it, before the Kansas-Nebraska bill passed ; and 
now it is asserted that there are not as many there as there were 
before the passage of the bill, notwithstanding that they had 
local laws sustaining and encouraging it, enacted, as the Repub- 
licans say, by a "bogus" Legislature, imposed upon Kansas by 
an invasion from Missouri. Why has not slavery obtained a 
foothold in Kansas under these circumstances? Simply because 
there was a majority of her people opposed to slavery, and every 
slaveholder knew that if he took his slaves there, the moment 
that majority got possession of the ballot-boxes, and a fair election 
was held, that moment slavery would be abolished, and he would 
lose them. For that reason, such owners as took their slaves 
there, brought them back to Missouri, fearing that if they 
remained they would be emancipated. Thus you see that under 
the principle of popular sovereignty, slavery has been kept out 
of Kansas, notwithstanding the fact that for the first three years 



52 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

they had a Legislature in that Territory favorable to it. I tell 
you, m}^ friends, it is impossible under our institutions to force 
slaver}' on an unwilling people. If this principle of popular 
sovereignty asserted in the Nebraska bill be fairly carried out, by 
letting the people decide the question for themselves, by a fair 
vote, at a fair election, and with honest returns, slavery will never 
exist one day, or one hour, in any Territory against the unfriendly 
legislation of an unfriendly people. I care not how the Dred 
Scott decision may have settled the abstract question so far as 
the practical result is concerned ; for, to use the language of an 
eminent Southern Senator on this very question : — 

" I do not care a fig which way the decision shall be, for it is of 
no particular consequence ; slavery cannot exist a day or an hour, in 
any Territory or State, unless it has affirmative laws sustaining and 
supporting it, furnishing police regulations and remedies ; and an 
omission to furnish them would be as fatal as a constitutional prohi- 
bition. Without affirmative legislation in its favor, slavery could not 
exist any longer than a new-born infant could survive under the heat 
of the sun, on a barren rock, without protection. It would wilt and 
die for the want of support." 

Hence, if the people of a Territory want slavery, they will 
encourage it by passing affirmatory laws, and the necessary 
police regulations, patrol laws, and slave code; if they do not 
want it, they will withhold that legislation, and by withholding 
it slavery is as dead as if it was prohibited by a constitutional 
prohibition, especially if, in addition, their legislation is un- 
friendly, as it would be if they were opposed to it. They could 
pass such local laws and police regulations as would drive 
slavery out in one day, or one hour, if they were opposed to it ; 
and therefore, so far as the question of slavery in the Territories 
is concerned, so far as the principle of popular sovereignty is 
concerned, in its practical operation, it matters not how the Dred 
Scott case may be decided with reference to the Territories. My 
own opinion on that law point is well known. It is shown by my 
votes and speeches in Congress. But be it as it may, the question 
was an abstract question, inviting no practical results; and 
whether slavery shall exist or shall not exist in any State or 
Territory will depend upon whether the people are for or against 
it ; and whichever way they shall decide it in any Territory or 
in any State, will be entirely satisfactory to me. 

But I must now bestow a few words upon Mr. Lincoln's 
main objection to the Dred Scott decision. He is not going to 
submit to it. Not that he is going to make war upon it with 
force of arms. But he is going to appeal and reverse it in some 
way ; he cannot tell us how. I reckon not by a writ of error, 
because I do not know where he would prosecute that, except 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 53 

before an Abolition Society. And when he appeals, he does not 
exactly tell us to whom he will appeal, except it be the Republi- 
can party ; and I have yet to learn that the Republican party, 
under the Constitution, has judicial powers : but he is going to 
appeal from it and reverse it, either by an Act of Congress, or by 
turning out the judges, or in some other way. And why? 
Because he says that that decision deprives the negro of the 
benefits of that clause of the Constitution of the United States 
which entitles the citizens of each State to all the privileges and 
immunities of citizens of the several States. Well, it is very true 
that the decision does have that effect. By deciding that a 
negro is not a citizen, of course it denies to him the rights and 
privileges awarded to citizens of the United States. It is this 
that Mr. Lincoln will not submit to. Why? For the palpable 
reason that he wishes to confer upon the negro all the rights, 
privileges, and immunities of citizens of the several States. I 
will not quarrel with Mr. Lincoln for his views on that subject. 
I have no doubt he is conscientious in them, I have not the 
slightest idea but that he conscientiously believes that a negro 
ought to enjoy and exercise all the rights and privileges given to 
white men ; but I do not agree with him, and hence I cannot 
concur with him. I believe that this Government of ours was 
founded on the white basis. I believe that it was established by 
white men, by men of European birth, or descended of European 
races, for the benefit of white men and their posterity in all 
time to come. I do not believe that it was the design or inten- 
tion of the signers of the Declaration of Independence or the 
framers of the Constitution to include negroes, Indians, or other 
inferior races, with white men, as citizens. Our fathers had at 
that day seen the evil consequences of conferring civil and politi- 
cal rights upon the Indian and negro in the Spanish and French 
colonies on the American continent and the adjacent islands. 
In Mexico, in Central America, in South America and in the 
West India Islands, where the Indian, the negro, and men of all 
colors and all races are put on an equality by law, the effect of 
political amalgamation can be seen. Ask any of those gallant 
young men in your own county, who went to Mexico to fight 
the battles of their country, in what friend Lincoln con- 
siders an unjust and unholy war, and hear what they will tell you 
in regard to the amalgamation of races in that country. Amal- 
gamation there, first political, then social, has led to demoraliza- 
tion and degradation, until it has reduced that people below the 
point of capacity for self-government. Our fathers knew what 
the eflect of it would be, and from the time they planted foot 
on the American continent, not only those who landed at James- 
town, but at Plymouth Rock and all other points on the coast, they 
pursued the policy of confining civil and political rights to the 



54 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

white race, and excluding the negro in all cases. Still, Mr. 
Lincoln conscientiously believes that it is his duty to advocate 
negro citizenship. He wants to give the negro the privilege of 
citizenship. He quotes scripture again, and says : " As your 
Father in heaven is perfect, be ye also perfect." And he applies 
that scriptural quotation to all classes ; not that he expects us all 
to be as perfect as our Master, but as nearly perfect as possible. 
In other words, he is willing to give the negro an equality under 
the law, in order that he may approach as near perfection, or an 
equality with the white man, as possible. To this same end he 
quotes the Declaration of Independence in these words : " We 
hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men were created 
equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable 
rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap- 
piness ;" and goes on to argue that the negro was included, or 
intended to be included, in that Declaration, by the signers of 
the paper. He says that, by the Declaration of Independence, 
therefore, all kinds of men, negroes included, were created equal 
and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, 
and, further, that the right of the negro to be on an equality 
with the white man is a divine right, conferred by the Almighty, 
and rendered inalienable according to the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. Hence no human law or constitution can deprive 
the negro of that equality with the white man to which he is en- 
titled by the divine law. ["Higher law."] Yes, higher law. 
Now, I do not question Mr. Lincoln's sincerity on this point. 
He believes that the negro, by the divine law, is created the 
equal of the white man, and that no human law can deprive him 
of that equality, thus secured ; and he contends that the negro 
ought, therefore, to have all the rights and privileges of citizen- 
ship on an equality with the white man. In order to accomplish 
this, the first thing that would have to be done in this State would 
be to blot out of our State Constitution that clause which pro- 
hibits negroes from coming into this State and making it an 
African colony, and permit them to come and spread over these 
charming prairies until in midday they shall look black as night. 
When our friend Lincoln gets all his colored brethren aroimd 
him here, he will then raise them to perfection as fast as possible, 
and place them on an equality with the white man, first removing 
all legal restrictions, because they are our equals b}?^ divine law, 
and there should be no such restrictions. He wants them to vote. 
I am opposed to it. If they had a vote, I reckon they would 
all vote for him in preference to me, entertaining the views I do. 
But that matters not. The position he has taken on this question 
not only presents him as claiming for them the right to vote, but 
their right, under the divine law and the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, to be elected to office, to become members of the Legis- 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 55 

lature, to go to Congress, to become Governors, or United States 
Senators, or Judges of the Supreme Court ; and I suppose that 
when they control that court they will probably reverse the Dred 
Scott decision. He is going to bring negroes here, and give them 
the right of citizenship, the right of voting, and the right of 
holding office and sitting on juries; and what else? Why, he 
would permit them to marry, would he not? And if he gives 
them that right, I suppose he will let them marry whom they 
please, provided they marry their equals. If the divine law 
declares that the white man is the equal of the negro woman, 
that they are on a perfect equality, I suppose he admits the right 
of the negro woman to marry the white man. In other words, 
his doctrine that the negro, by divine law, is placed on a perfect 
equality with the white man, and that that equality is recognized 
by the Declaration of Independence, leads him necessarily to 
establish negro equality under the law ; but whether even then 
they would be so in fact would depend upon the degree of virtue 
and intelligence they possessed, and certain other qualities that 
are matters of taste rather than of law. I do not understand 
Mr. Lincoln as saying that he expects to make them our equals 
socially, or by intelligence, nor in fact as citizens, but that he 
wishes to make them our equals under the law, and then say to 
them, " as your Master in heaven is perfect, be ye also perfect." 
Well, I confess to you, my fellow-citizens, that I am utterly 
opposed to that system of Abolition philosophy. I do not be- 
lieve that the signers of the Declaration of Independence had 
any reference to negroes when they used the expression that all 
men were created equal, or that they had any reference to the 
Chinese or Coolies, the Indians, the Japanese, or any other 
inferior race. They were speaking of the white race, the 
European race on this continent, and their descendants, and 
emigrants who should come here. They were speaking only of 
the white race, and never dreamed that their language would be 
construed to include the negro. And now for the evidence of 
that fact. At the time the Declaration of Independence was put 
forth, declaring the equality of all men, every one of the thirteen 
colonies was a slaveholding colony, and every man who signed 
that Declaration represented a slaveholding constituency. Did 
they intend, when they put their signatures to that instrument, to 
declare that their own slaves were on an equality with them ; 
that they were made their equals by divine law, and that any 
human law reducing them to an inferior position was void, as 
being in violation of divine law? Was that the meaning of the 
signers of the Declaration of Independence? Did Jefferson and 
Henry and Lee, — did any of the signers of that instrument, or 
all of them, on the day they signed it, give their slaves freedom? 
History records that they did not. Did they go further, and put 



56 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the negro on an equality with the white man throughout the 
country? They did not. And yet if they had understood that 
Declaration as including the negro, which Mr. Lincoln holds 
they did, they would have been bound, as conscientious men, to 
have restored the negro to that equality which he thinks the 
Almighty intended they should occupy with the white man. 
They did not do it. Slavery was abolished in only one State 
before the adoption of the Constitution in 1789, and then in 
others gradually, down to the time this Abolition agitation began ; 
and it has not been abolished in one since. The history of the 
countr}^ shows that neither the signers of the Declaration, nor the 
framers of the Constitution, ever supposed it possible that their 
language would be used in an attempt to make this nation a 
mixed nation of Indians, negroes, whites, and mongrels. I 
repeat, that our whole history confirms the proposition, that from 
the earliest settlement of the colonies down to the Declaration of 
Independence and the adoption of the Constitution of the United 
States, our fathers proceeded on the white basis, making the 
white people the governing race, but conceding to the Indian 
and negro, and all inferior races, all the rights and all the 
privileges they could enjoy consistent with the safety of the 
society in which they lived. That is my opinion now. I told 
you that humanity, philanthropy, justice, and sound policy re- 
quired that we should give the negro every right, every privilege, 
every immunity, consistent with the safety and welfare of the 
State. The question then naturally arises. What are those rights 
and privileges, and What is the nature and extent of them ? My 
answer is, that that is a question which each State and each 
Territor}^ must decide for itself. We have decided that question. 
We have said that in this State the negro shall not be a slave, 
but that he shall enjoy no political rights ; that negro equality 
shall not exist. I am content with that position. My friend 
Lincoln is not. He thinks that our policy and our laws on that 
subject are contrary to the Declaration of Independence. He 
thinks that the Almighty made the negro his equal and his 
brother. For my part, I do not consider the negro any kin to 
me, nor to any other white man ; but I would still carry my 
humanity and my philanthropy to the extent of giving him every 
privilege and every immunity that he could enjoy, consistent 
with our own good. We in Illinois have the right to decide 
upon that question for ourselves, and we are bound to allow 
every other State to do the same. Maine allows the negro to 
vote on an equalit}'^ with the white man. I do not quarrel with 
our friends in Maine for that. If they think it wise and proper 
in Maine to put the negro on an equality with the white man, 
and allow him to go to the polls and negative the vote of a white 
man, it is their business, and not mine. On the other hand, New 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 57 

York permits a negro to vote, provided he owns $250 worth of 
property. New York thinks that a negro ought to be permitted 
to vote, provided he is rich, but not otherwise. They allow the 
aristocratic negro to vote there. I never saw the wisdom, the 
propriety, or the justice of that decision on the part of New York, 
and yet it never occurred to me that I had a right to find fault 
with that State. It is her business ; she is a sovereign State, 
and has a right to do as she pleases ; and if she will take care of 
her own negroes, making such regulations concerning them as 
suit her, an d let us alone, I will mind my business, and not interfere 
with her. In Kentucky they will not give a negro any political or 
any civil rights. I shall not argue the question whether Ken- 
tucky in so doing has decided right or wrong, wisely or unwisely. 
It is a question for Kentucky to decide for herself. I believe that 
the Kentuckians have consciences as well as ourselves ; they 
have as keen a perception of their religious, moral, and social 
duties as we have ; and I am willing that they shall decide this 
slavery question for themselves, and be accountable to their God 
for their action. It is not for me to arraign them for what they 
do. I will not judge them, lest I shall be judged. Let Ken- 
tucky mind her own business and take care of her negroes, and 
we attend to our own affairs and take care of our negroes, and 
we will be the best of friends ; but if Kentucky attempts to 
interfere with us, or we with her, there will be strife, there will 
be discord, there will be relentless hatred, there will be every- 
thing but fraternal feeling and brotherly love. It is not necessary 
that you should enter Kentucky and interfere in that State, to 
use the language of Mr. Lincoln. It is just as offensive to inter- 
fere from this State, or send your missiles over there. I care not 
whether an enemy, if he is going to assault us, shall actually 
come into our State, or come along the line, and throw his bomb- 
shells over to explode in our midst. Suppose England should 
plant a battery on the Canadian side of the Niagara River, 
opposite Buffalo, and throw bombshells over, which would 
explode in Main Street, in that city, and destroy the buildings, 
and that, when we protested, she would say, in the language of 
Mr. Lincoln, that she never dreamed of coming into the United 
States to interfere with us, and that she was just throwing her 
bombs over the line from her own side, which she had a right to 
do. Would that explanation satisfy us? So it is with Mr. 
Lincoln. He is not going into Kentucky, but he will plant his 
batteries on this side of the Ohio, where he is safe and secure 
for a retreat, and will throw his bombshells — his Abolition docu- 
ments — over the river, and will carry on a political warfare, and 
get up strife between the North and the South, until he elects a 
sectional President, reduces the South to the condition of 
dependent colonies, raises the negro to an equality, and forces 



58 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the South to submit to the doctrine that a house divided against 
itself cannot stand ; that the Union divided into half slave States 
and half free cannot endure ; that they must all be slave or they 
must all be free ; and that as we in the North are in the majority, 
we will not permit them to be all slave, and therefore they in the 
South must consent to the States all being free. Now, fellow- 
citizens, I submit to you whether these doctrines are consistent 
with the peace and harmony of this Union? I submit to you 
whether they are consistent with our duties as citizens of a 
common confederacy ; whether they are consistent with the 
principles which ought to govern brethren of the same family? 
I recognize all the people of these States, North and South, East 
and West, old or new, Atlantic or Pacific, as our brethren, flesh of 
our flesh, and I will do no act unto them that I would not be will- 
ing they should do unto us. I would apply the same Christian 
rule to the States of this Union that we are taught to apply to 
individuals, — " Do unto others as you would have others do unto 
you ; " and this would secure peace. Why should this slavery 
agitation be kept up? Does it benefit the white man, or the 
slave? Who does it benefit, except the Republican politicians, 
who use it as their hobby to ride into office? Why, I repeat, 
should it be continued? Why cannot we be content to 
administer this government as it was made, — a confederacy of 
sovereign and independent States? Let us recognize the 
sovereignty and independence of each State, refrain from inter- 
fering with the domestic institutions and regulations of other 
States, permit the Territories and new States to decide their 
institutions for themselves, as we did when we were in their con- 
dition ; blot out these lines of North and South, and resort back 
to these lines of State boundaries which the Constitution has 
marked out and engraved upon the face of the country ; have 
no other dividing lines but these, and we will be one united, 
harmonious people, with fraternal feelings, and no discord or 
dissension. 

These are my views, and these are the principles to which I 
have devoted all my energies since 1850, when I acted side by 
side with the immortal Clay and the god-like Webster in that 
memorable struggle, in which Whigs and Democrats united upon 
a common platform of patriotism and the Constitution, throwing 
aside partisan feelings in order to restore peace and harmony to 
a distracted country. And when I stood beside the death-bed of 
Mr. Clay, and heard him refer, with feelings and emotions of the 
deepest solicitude, to the welfare of the country, and saw that he 
looked upon the principle embodied in the great Compromise 
measures of 1850, the principle of the Nebraska bill, the doctrine 
of leaving each State and Territory free to decide its institutions 
for itself, as the only means by which the peace of the country 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 59 

could be preserved and the Union perpetuated, — I pledged him, 
on that death-bed of his, that so long as I lived, my energies 
should be devoted to the vindication of that principle, and of his 
fame as connected with it. I gave the same pledge to the great 
expounder of the Constitution, he who has been called the " god- 
like Webster." I looked up to Clay and to him as a son w^ould to 
a father, and I call upon the people of Illinois, and the people of 
the whole Union, to bear testimony that never since the sod has 
been laid upon the graves of these eminent statesmen have I 
failed, on any occasion, to vindicate the principle with which the 
last great crowning acts of their lives were identified, or to 
vindicate their names whenever they have been assailed ; and now 
my life and energy are devoted to this great work as the means 
of preserving this Union. This Union can only be preserved by 
maintaining the fraternal feelintj between the North and the 
South, the East and the West. If that good feeling can be pre- 
served, the Union will be as perpetual as the fame of its great 
founders. It can be maintained by preserving the sovereignty 
of the States, the right of each State and each Territory to settle 
its domestic concerns for itself, and the duty of each to refrain 
from interfering with the other in any of its local or domestic 
institutions. Let that be done, and the Union will be perpetual ; 
let that be done, and this Republic, which began with thirteen 
States, and which now numbers thirt3^-two, which, when it began, 
only extended from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, but now 
reaches to the Pacific, may yet expand. North and South, until 
it covers the whole Continent, and becomes one vast ocean-bound 
confederacy. Then, my friends, the path of duty, of honor, of 
patriotism, is plain. There are a few simple principles to be 
preserved. Bear in mind the dividing line between State rights 
and Federal authority ; let us maintain the great principles of 
popular sovereignty, of State rights, and of the Federal Union 
as the Constitution has made it, and this Republic will endure 
forever. 

I thank you kindly for the patience with which you have 
listened to me. I fear I have wearied you. I have a heavy day's 
work before me to-morrow, I have several speeches to make. 
My friends, in whose hands I am, are taxing me beyond human 
endurance ; but I shall take the helm and control them hereafter. 
I am profoundly grateful to the people of McLean for the 
reception they have given me, and the kindness with which they 
have listened to me. I remember when I first came among you 
here, twenty-five years ago, that I was prosecuting attorney in 
this district, and that my earliest eflbrts were made here, when 
my deficiencies were too apparent, I am afraid, to be concealed 
from any one. I remember the courtesy and kindness with 
which I was uniformly treated by you all ; and whenever I can 



60 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

recognize the face of one of your old citizens, it is like meeting 
an old and cherished friend. I come among you with a heart 
filled with gratitude for past favors. I have been with you but 
little for the past few years, on account of my official duties. I 
intend to visit you again before the campaign is over. I wish to 
speak to your whole people. I wish them to pass judgment upon 
the correctness of my course, and the soundness of the principles 
which I have proclaimed. If you do not approve my principles, 
I cannot ask your support. If you believe that the election of 
Mr. Lincoln would contribute more to preserve the harmony of 
the country, to perpetuate the Union, and more to the prosperity 
and the honor and glory of the State, then it is your duty to give 
him the preference. If, on the contrary, you believe that I have 
been faithful to my trust, and that b}^ sustaining me you will give 
greater strength and efficiency to the principles which I have 
expounded, I shall then be grateful for your support. I renew 
my profound thanks for your attention. 



SPEECH OF SENATOR DOUGLAS, 

Delivered July 17, 1858, at Springfield, III. (Mr. Lincoln was not present.) 

Mr. Chairman and Fellow-citizens of Springfield and 
OLD Sangamon : My heart is filled with emotions at the allusions 
which have been so happily and so kindly made in the welcome 
just extended to me, — a welcome so numerous and so enthusi- 
astic, bringing me to my home among my old friends, that 
language cannot express m}^ gratitude. I do feel at home when- 
ever I return to old Sangamon and receive those kind and 
friendly greetings which have never failed to meet me when I 
have come among 3^ou ; but never before have I had such occasion 
to be grateful and to be proud of the manner of the reception as 
on the present. While I am willing, sir, to attribute a part of 
this demonstration to those kind and friendly personal relations 
to which you have referred, I cannot conceal from myself that 
the controlling and pervading element in this great mass of 
human beings is devotion to that principle of self-government to 
which so many years of my life have been devoted ; and rejoice 
more in considering it an approval of m}-- support of a cardinal 
principle than I would if I could appropriate it to myself as a 
personal compliment. 

You but speak rightly when you assert that during the last 
session of Congress there was an attempt to violate one of the 
fundamental principles upon which our free institutions rest. 
The attempt to force the Lecompton Constitution upon the people 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 61 

of Kansas against their will, would have been, if successful, 
subversive of the great fundamental principles upon which all 
our institutions rest. If there is any one principle more sacred 
and more vital to the existence of a free government than all 
others, it is the right of the people to form and ratify the Consti- 
tution under which they are to live. It is the corner-stone of the 
temple of liberty ; it is the foundation upon which the whole 
structure rests ; and whenever it can be successfully evaded, self- 
government has received a vital stab. I deemed it my duty, 
as a citizen and as a representative of the State of Illinois, to 
resist, with all my energies and with whatever of ability I could 
command, the consummation of that effort to force a constitution 
upon an unwilling people. 

I am aware that other questions have been connected, or 
attempted to be connected, with that great struggle ; but they 
were mere collateral questions, not affecting the main point. Mj'- 
opposition to the Lecompton Constitution rested solely upon the 
fact that it was not the act and deed of that people, and that it 
did not embody their will. I did not object to it upon the ground 
of the slavery clause contained in it. I shoiild have resisted it 
with the same energ}^ and determination even if it had been a 
free State instead of a slaveholding State ; and as an evidence 
of this fact I wish you to bear in mind that my speech against 
that Lecompton Act was made on the 9th day of December, 
nearly two weeks before the vote was taken on the acceptance 
or rejection of the slavery clause. I did not then know, I could 
not have known, whether the slavery clause would be accepted 
or rejected ; the general impression was that it would be rejected ; 
and in my speech I assumed that impression to be true ; that 
probably it would be voted down ; and then I said to the United 
States Senate, as I now proclaim to you, m}^ constituents, that 
you have no more right to force a free State upon an unwilling 
people than you have to force a slave State upon them against 
their will. You have no right to force either a good or a bad 
thing upon a people who do not choose to receive it. And then, 
again, the highest privilege of our people is to determine for 
themselves what kind of institutions are good and what kind of 
institutions are bad ; and it may be true that the same people, 
situated in a different latitude and different climate, and 
with different productions and different interests, might decide 
the same question one way in the North and another way in the 
South, in order to adapt their institutions to the wants and wishes 
of the people to be affected by them. 

You all are familiar with the Lecompton struggle, and I will 
occupy no more time upon the subject, except to remark that when 
we drove the enemies of the principle of popular sovereignty 
from the effort to force the Lecompton Constitution upon the 



62 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

people of Kansas, and when we compelled them to abandon the 
attempt and to refer that Constitution to that people for accept- 
ance or rejection, we obtained a concession of the principle for 
which I had contended throughout the struggle. When I saw 
that the principle was conceded, and that the Constitution was 
not to be forced upon Kansas against the wishes of the people, 
I felt anxious to give the proposition my support ; but when I 
examined it, I found that the mode of reference to the people 
and the form of submission, upon which the vote was taken, was 
so objectionable as to make it unfair and unjust. 

Sir, it is an axiom with me that in every free government 
an unfair election is no election at all. Every election should 
be free, should be fair, with the same privileges and the same 
inducements for a negative as for an affirmative vote. The 
objection to what is called the "English" proposition, by which 
the Lecompton Constitution was referred back to the people of 
Kansas, was this : that if the people chose to accept the Lecomp- 
ton Constitution they could come in with only 35,000 inhabitants ; 
while if they determined to reject it in order to form another more 
in accordance with their wishes and sentiments, they were 
compelled to stay out until they should have 93,420 inhabitants. 
In other words, it was making a distinction and discrimination 
between Free States and Slave States under the Federal Consti- 
tution. I deny the justice, I deny the right, of any distinction 
or discrimination between the States North and South, free or 
slave. Equality among the States is a fundamental principle 
of this government. Hence, while I will never consent to the 
passage of a law that a Slave State may come in with 35,000, 
while a Free State shall not come in unless it have 93,000, on 
the other hand, I shall not consent to admit a Free State with 
a population of 35,000, and require 93,000, in a slaveholding 
State. 

My principle is to recognize each State of the Union as 
independent, sovereign, and equal in its sovereignty. I will 
apply that principle, not only to the original thirteen States, but 
to the States which have since been brought into the Union, and 
also to every State that shall hereafter be received, "as long as 
water shall run, and grass grow." For these reasons I felt 
compelled, by a sense of duty, by a conviction of principle, to 
record my vote against what is called the English bill ; but yet 
the bill became a law, and under that law an election has been 
ordered to be held on the first Monday in August, for the purpose 
of determining the question of the acceptance or rejection of the 
proposition submitted by Congress. I have no hesitation in 
saying to you, as the chairman of your committee has justly said 
in his address, that whatever the decision of the people of Kansas 
may be at that election, it must be final and conclusive of the 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 63 

whole subject ; for if at that election a majority of the people 
of Kansas shall vote for the acceptance of the Congressional 
proposition, Kansas from that moment becomes a State of the 
Union, the law admitting her becomes irrepealable, and thus the 
controversy terminates forever ; if, on the other hand, the 
people of Kansas shall vote down that proposition, as it is now 
generally admitted they will, by a large majority, then from that 
instant the Lecompton Constitution is dead, — dead beyond the 
power of resurrection ; and thus the controversy terminates. 
And when the monster shall die, I shall be willing, and trust that 
all of you will be willing, to acquiesce in the death of the 
Lecompton Constitution. The controversy may now be con- 
sidered as terminated, for in three weeks from now it will be 
finally settled, and all the ill-feeling, all the embittered feeling 
which grew out of it shall cease, unless an attempt should be 
made in the future to repeat the same outrage upon popular 
rights. I need not tell 3^ou that my past course is a sufficient 
guarantee that if the occasion shall ever arise again while I 
occupy a seat in the United States Senate, you will find me 
carrying out the same principle that I have this winter, with all 
the energy and all the power I may be able to command. I have 
the gratification of saying to you that I do not believe that that 
controversy will ever arise again : firstly, because the fate of 
Lecompton is a warning to the people of every Territory and 
of every State to be cautious how the example is repeated ; and, 
secondl}^ because the President of the United States, in his 
annual message, has said that he trusts the example in the 
Minnesota case, wherein Congress passed a law, called an 
Enabling Act, requiring the Constitution to be submitted to the 
people for acceptance or rejection, will be followed in all future 
cases. ["That was right."] I agree with you that it was right. 
I said so on the day after the message was delivered, in my 
speech in the Senate on the Lecompton Constitution, and I 
have frequently in the debate tendered to the President and his 
friends, tendered to the Lecomptonites, my voluntary pledge, 
that if he will stand by that recommendation, and they will 
stand by it, that they will find me working hand in hand with 
them in the effort to carry it out. All we have to do, therefore, 
is to adhere firml}^ in the future, as we have done in the past, to 
the principle contained in the recommendation of the President 
in his annual message, that the example in the Minnesota case 
shall be carried out in all future cases of the admission of 
Territories into the Union as States. Let that be done, and the 
principle of popular sovereignty will be maintained in all of its 
vigor and all of its integrity. I rejoice to know that Illinois 
stands prominently and proudly forward among the States which 
first took their position firmly and immovably upon this principle 



64 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

of popular sovereignty, applied to the Territories as well as the 
States. You all recollect when, in 1850, the peace of the country 
was disturbed in consequence of the agitation of the slavery 
question, and the effort to force the Wilmot Proviso upon all the 
Territories, that it required all the talent and all the energy, all 
the wisdom, all the patriotism, of a Clay and a Webster, united 
with other great party leaders, to devise a system of measures 
by which peace and harmony could be restored to our distracted 
country. Those compromise measures eventually passed, and 
were recorded on the statute book, not only as the settlement of 
the then existing difficulties, but as furnishing a rule of action 
which should prevent in all future time the recurrence of like 
evils, if they were lirml}^ and fairly carried out. Those compromise 
measures rested, as I said in my speech at Chicago on my return 
home that year, upon the principle that every people ought to have 
the right to form and regulate their own domestic institutions in 
their own way, subject onl}^ to the Constitution. The}^ were 
founded upon the principle that while every State possessed that 
right under the Constitution, that the same right ought to be 
extended to and exercised by the people of the Territories. When 
the Illinois Legislature assembled, a few months after the adoption 
of these measures, the first thing the members did was to review 
their action upon this slavery agitation, and to correct the 
errors into which their predecessors had fallen. You remember 
that their first act was to repeal the Wilmot Proviso instructions 
to our United States Senators, which had been previously 
passed, and in lieu of them to record another resolution upon 
the I'ournal, with which j^ou must all be familiar, — a resolution 
brought forward by Mr. Ninian Edwards, and adopted by the 
House of Representatives by a vote of 61 in the affirmative to 4 
in the negative. That resolution I can quote to you in almost 
its precise language. It declared that the great principle of 
self-government was the birthright of freemen, was the gift of 
Heaven, was achieved by the blood of our revolutionary fathers, 
and must be continued and carried out in the organization of all 
the Territories and the admission of all new States. That 
became the Illinois platform by the United voices of the 
Democratic party and of the Whig party in 1851 ; all the Whigs 
and all the Democrats in the Legislature uniting in an affirma- 
tive vote upon it, and there being only four votes in the 
negative, — of Abolitionists, of course. That resolution stands 
upon the journal of your Legislature to this day and hour 
unrepealed, as a standing, living, perpetual instruction to the Sena- 
tors from Illinois in all time to come to carr}^ out that principle of 
self-government, and allow no limitation upon it in the organiza- 
tion of any Territories or the admission of any new States. In 
1854, when it became my duty as the chairman of the committee 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 65 

on Territories to bring forward a bill for the organization of 
Kansas and Nebraska, I incorporated that principle in it, and 
Congress passed it, thus carrjdng the principle into practical 
effect. I will not recur to the scenes which took place all over 
the countr}^ in 1854, when that Nebraska bill passed. I could 
then travel from Boston to Chicago b}' the light of my own 
effigies, in consequence of having stood up for it. I leave it to 
you to say how I met that storm, and whether I quailed under 
it ; whether I did not " face the music," justify the principle, and 
pledge my life to carry it out. 

A friend here reminds me, too, that when making speeches 
then, justif^ang the Nebraska bill and the great principle of self- 
government, that I predicted that in less than five years you 
would have to get out a search-warrant to find an anti-Nebraska 
man. Well, I believe I did make that prediction. I did not 
claim the power of a prophet, but it occurred to me that among 
a free people, and an honest people, and an intelligent people, 
that five j'ears was long enough for them to come to an 
understanding that the great principle of self-government was 
right, not only in the States, but in the Territories. I 
rejoiced this year to see my prediction, in that respect, 
carried out and fulfilled by the unanimous vote, in one form 
or another, of both Houses of Congress. If you will remember 
that pending this Lecompton controversy that gallant old 
Roman, Kentucky's favorite son, the worthy successor of 
the immortal Clay, — I allude, as you know, to the gallant 
John J. Crittenden, — brought forward a bill, now known as the 
Crittenden-Montgomery bill, in which it was proposed that the 
Lecompton Constitution should be referred back to the people 
of Kansas, to be decided for or against it, at a fair election, 
and if a majority were in favor of it, that Kansas should 
come into the Union as a slaveholding State, but that if a 
majority were against it, that they should make a new constitution, 
and come in with slavery or without it, as they thought proper. 
["That was right."] Yes, my dear sir, it was not only right, 
but it was carrying out the principle of the Nebraska bill in 
its letter and in its spirit. Of course I voted for it, and so did 
every Republican Senator and Representative in Congress. I 
have found some Democrats so perfectly straight that they blame 
me for voting for the principle of the Nebraska bill because the 
Republicans voted the same way. [Great laughter. "What 
did they say?"] 

What did they say? Why, man}' of them said that Douglas 
voted with the Republicans. Yes, not only that, but with the 
black Republicans. Well, there are different modes of stating 
that proposition. The " New York Tribune " says that Douglas 
did not vote with the Republicans, but that on that question the 
Republicans went over to Douglas and voted with him. 

10 



66 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

My friends, I have never yet abandoned a principle because 
of the support I found men yielding to it, and I shall never 
abandon my Democratic principles merely because Republicans 
come to them. For what do we travel over the country and 
make speeches in every political canvass, if it is not to enlighten 
the minds of these Republicans, to remove the scales from their 
eyes, and to impart to them the light of Democratic vision, so 
that they may be able to carry out the Constitution of our 
countrv as our fathers made it. And if by preaching our 
principles to the people we succeed in convincing the Repub- 
licans of the errors of their ways, and bring them over to us, are 
we bound to turn traitors to our principles merely because they 
give them their support? All I have to say is that I hope the 
Republican party will stand firm, in the future, by the vote they 
gave on the Crittenden-Montgomery bill. I hope we will find, 
in the resolutions of their County and Congressional Conven- 
tions, no declarations of " no more Slave States to be admitted 
into this Union," but in lieu of that declaration that we will find 
the principle that the people of every State and every Territory 
shall come into the Union with slavery or without it, just as they 
please, without any interference on the part of Congress. 

My friends, whilst I was at Washington, engaged in this 
great battle for sound constitutional principles, I find from the 
newspapers that the Republican party of this State assembled in 
this capital in State Convention, and not only nominated, as it 
was wise and proper for them to do, a man for my successor in 
the Senate, but laid down a platform, and their nominee made a 
speech, carefully written and prepared, and well delivered, 
which that Convention accepted as containing the Republican 
creed. I have no comment to make on that part of Mr. Lincoln's 
speech in which he represents me as forming a conspiracy with 
the Supreme Court, and with the late President of the United 
States and the present chief magistrate, having for my object the 
passage of the Nebraska bill, the Dred Scott decision, and the 
extension of slavery, — a scheme of political tricksters, composed 
of Chief Justice Taney and his eight associates, two Presidents 
of the United States, and one Senator of Illinois. If Mr. Lin- 
coln deems me a conspirator of that kind, all I have to say is 
that I do not think so badly of the President of the United 
States, and the Supreme Court of the United States, the highest 
judicial tribunal on earth, as to believe that they were capable in 
their action and decision of entering into political intrigues for 
partisan purposes. I therefore shall only notice those parts of 
Mr. Lincoln's speech in which he lays down his platform of 
principles, and tells you what he intends to do if he is elected to 
the Senate of the United States. 

[An old gentleman here rose on the platform and said : " Be 
particular now. Judge, be particular."] 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 67 

Mr. Douglas : My venerable friend here says that he will 
be gratified if I will be particular; and in order that I may be 
so, I will read the language of Mr. Lincoln as reported by 
himself and published to the country. Mr. Lincoln lays down 
his main proposition in these words : — 

" 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this 
Union cannot endure permanently, half free and half slave. I do not 
expect the Union will be dissolved, I do not expect the house to fall ; 
but I do expect it to cease to be divided. It will become all one thing 
or all the other." 

Mr. Lincoln does not think this Union can continue to exist 
composed of half slave and half free States ; the}'^ must all be free, 
or all slave. I do not doubt that this is Mr. Lincoln's con- 
scientious conviction. I do not doubt that he thinks it is the 
highest duty of every patriotic citizen to preserve this glorious 
Union, and to adopt these measures as necessary to its preserva- 
tion. He tells you that the only mode to preserve the Union is 
to make all the States free, or all slave. It must be the one, or 
it must be the other. Now, that being essential, in his estima- 
tion, to the preservation of this glorious Union, how is he going 
to accomplish it? He says that he wants to go to the Senate in 
order to carry out this favorite patriotic policy of his, of making 
all the States free, so that the house shall no longer be divided 
against itself. When he gets to the Senate, by what means is 
he going to accomplish it? By an Act of Congress? Will he 
contend that Congress has any power under the Constitution to 
abolish slavery in any State of this Union, or to interfere with it 
directly or indirectly? Of course he will not contend that. 
Then what is to be his mode of carrying out his principle, by 
which slavery shall be abolished in all of the States? Mr. 
Lincoln certainly does not speak at random. He is a lawyer, — 
an eminent lawyer, — and his profession is to know the remedy 
for every wrong. What is his remedy for this imaginary wrong 
which he supposes to exist? The Constitution of the United 
States provides that it may be amended by Congress passing 
an amendment by a two-thirds majority of each house, which 
shall be ratified by three-fourths of the States ; and the infer- 
ence is that Mr. Lincoln intends to carry this slavery agitation 
into Congress with the view of amending the Constitution so 
that 'slavery can be abolished in all the States of the Union. In 
other words, he is not going to allow one portion of the Union to 
be slave and another portion to be free ; he is not going to permit 
the house to be divided against itself. He is going to remedy it by 
lawful and constitutional means. What are to be these means? 
How can he abolish slavery in those States where it exists? 
There is but one mode by which a political organization, com- 



68 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

posed of men in the Free States, can abolish slavery in the 
slaveholding States, and that would be to abolish the State 
Legislatures, blot out of existence the State sovereignties, invest 
Congress with full and plenary power over all the local and 
domestic and police regulations of the different States of this 
Union. Then there would be uniformity in the local concerns 
and domestic institutions of the different States ; then the house 
would be no longer divided against itself; then the States would 
all be free, or they would all be slave ; then you would have 
imiformity prevailing throughout this whole land in the local and 
domestic institutions : but it would be a uniformity, not of liberty, 
but a uniformity of despotism that would triumph. I submit to 
you, my fellow-citizens, whether this is not the logical conse- 
quence of Mr. Lincoln's proposition? I have called on Mr. 
Lincoln to explain what he did mean, if he did not mean this, 
and he has made a speech at Chicago in which he attempts to 
explain. And how does he explain? I will give him the benefit 
of his own language, precisely as it was reported in the Repub- 
lican papers of that city, after undergoing his revision : — 

" I have said a hundred times, and have now no inclination to take 
it back, that I believe there is no right and ought to be no inclination in 
the people of the Free States to enter into the Slave States and inter- 
fere with the question of slavery at all." 

He believes the/e is no right on the part of the free people 
of the Free States to enter the Slave States and interfere with 
the question of slavery, hence he does not propose to go into 
Kentucky and stir up a civil war and a servile war between the 
blacks and the whites. All he proposes is to invite the people 
of Illinois and every other Free State to band together as one 
sectional part}^ governed and divided b}'' a geographical line, to 
make war upon the institution of slavery in the slaveholding 
States. He is going to carry it out by means of a political 
party that has its adherents only in the Free States, — a political 
partv that does not pretend that it can give a solitary vote in the 
Slave States of the Union ; and by this sectional vote he is going 
to elect a President of the United States, form a cabinet, and 
administer the government on sectional grounds, being the power 
of the North over that of the South. In other words, he invites 
a war of the North against the South, a warfare of the Free 
States against the slaveholding States. He asks all men in the 
Free States to conspire to exterminate slavery in the Southern 
States, so as to make them all free, and then he notifies the 
South that unless they are going to submit to our eflbrts to 
exterminate their institutions, they must band together and plant 
slavery in Illinois and ever}'- Northern State. He says that the 
States must all be free or must all be slave. On this point I take 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 69 

issue with him directly. I assert that Illinois has a right to 
decide the slavery question for herself. We have decided it, and 
I think we have done it wisely ; but whether wisely or unwisely, 
it is our business, and the people of no other State have any 
right to interfere with us, directly or indirectly. Claiming as we 
do this right for ourselves, we must concede it to every other 
State, to be exercised by them respectively. 

Now, Mr. Lincoln says that he will not enter into Kentucky 
to abolish slavery there, but that all he will do is to fight slavery 
in Kentucky from Illinois. He will not go over there to set 
fire to the match. I do not think he would. Mr. Lincoln is a 
very prudent man. He would not deem it wise to go over into 
Kentucky to stir up this strife, but he would do it from this side 
of the river. Permit me to inquire whether the wrong, the out- 
rage, of interference by one State with the local concerns of 
another is worse when you actually invade them than it would 
be if you carried on the warfare from another State? For the 
purpose of illustration, suppose the British Government should 
plant a battery on the Niagara River, opposite Buffalo, and 
throw their shells over into Buffalo, where they should explode 
and blow up the houses and destroy the town. We call the 
British Government to an account, and they say, in the language 
of Mr. Lincoln, we did not enter into the limits of the United 
States to interfere with you ; we planted the battery on our own 
soil, and had a right to shoot from our own soil ; and if our shells 
and balls fell in Buffalo and killed your inhabitants, why, it is 
your lookout, not ours. Thus, Mr. Lincoln is going to plant his 
Abolition batteries all along the banks of the Ohio River, and 
throw his shells into Virginia and Kentucky and into Missouri, 
and blow up the institution of slavery ; and when we arraign him 
for his unjust interference with the institutions of the other States, 
he sa^^s, " Why, I never did enter into Kentucky to interfere with 
her ; I do not propose to do it ; I only propose to take care of my 
own head by keeping on this side of the river, out of harm's 
way." But yet he says he is going to persevere in this system ot 
sectional warfare, and I have no doubt he is sincere in what he 
says. He says that the existence of the Union depends upon his 
success in firincj into these Slave States until he exterminates 
them. He says that unless he shall play his batteries success- 
fully, so as to abolish slavery in every one of the States, that the 
Union shall be dissolved ; and he says that a dissolution of the 
Union would be a terrible calamity. Of course it would. We 
are all friends of the Union. We all believe — I do — that our 
lives, our liberties, our hopes in the future, depend upon the preser- 
vation and perpetuity of this glorious Union. I believe that the 
hopes of the friends of liberty throughout the world depend upon 
the perpetuity of the American Union. But while I believe that 



70 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

my mode of preserving the Union is a very different one from 
that of Mr. Lincoln, I believe that the Union can only be pre- 
served by maintaining inviolate the Constitution of the United 
States as our fathers have made it. That Constitution fjuarantees 
to the people of every State the right to have slavery or not 
have it ; to have negroes or not have them ; to have Maine liquor 
laws or not have them ; to have just such institutions as they 
choose, each State being left free to decide for itself. The 
framers of that Constitution never conceived the idea that 
uniformity in the domestic institutions of the different States was 
either desirable or possible. They well understood that the laws 
and institutions which would be well adapted to the granite hills 
of New Hampshire would be unfit for the rice plantations of South 
Carolina ; they well understood that each one of the thirteen 
States had distinct and separate interests, and required distinct 
and separate local laws and local institutions. And in view of 
that fact they provided that each State should retain its sovereign 
power within its own limits, with the right to make just such laws 
and just such institutions as it saw proper, under the belief that 
no two of them w^ould be alike. If they had supposed that 
uniformity was desirable and possible, why did they provide for 
a separate legislature for each State? Why did they not blot 
out State sovereignty and State legislatures, and give all the 
power to Congress, in order that the laws might be uniform? 
For the very reason that uniformity, in their opinion, was neither 
desirable nor possible. We have increased from thirteen States 
to thirt3'-two States ; and just in proportion as the number of 
States increases and our territory expands, there will be a still 
greater variet}^ and dissimilarity of climate, of production, and of 
interest, requiring a corresponding dissimilarity and variety in 
the local laws and institutions adapted thereto. The laws that are 
necessary in the mining regions of California would be totally 
useless and vicious on the prairies of Illinois ; the laws that would 
suit the lumber regions of Maine or of Minnesota would be totally 
useless and valueless in the tobacco regions of Virginia and 
Kentucky ; the laws which would suit the manufacturing districts 
of New England would be totally unsuited to the planting regions 
of the Carolinas, of Georgia, and of Louisiana. Each State is 
supposed to have interests separate and distinct from each and 
every other ; and hence must have laws different from each and 
every other State, in order that its laws shall be adapted to 
the condition and necessities of the people. Hence I insist that 
our institutions rest on the theory that there shall be dissimilarity 
and variety in the local laws and institutions of the different 
States, instead of all being uniform ; and you find, my friends, 
that Mr. Lincoln and myself differ radically and totally on the 
fundamental principles of this government. He goes for con- 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 71 

solidation, for uniformity in our local institutions, for blotting out 
State rights and State sovereignty, and consolidating all the 
power in the Federal Government, for converting these thirty- 
two sovereign States into one empire, and making uniformity 
throughout the length and breadth of the land. On the other 
hand, I go for maintaining the authority of the Federal Govern- 
ment within the limits marked out by the Constitution, and then 
for maintaining and preserving the sovereignty of each and all 
of the States of the Union, in order that each State may regulate 
and adopt its own local institutions in its own way, without inter- 
ference from any power whatsoever. Thus you find there is a 
distinct issue of principles — principles irreconcilable — between 
Mr. Lincoln and myself. He goes for consolidation and uni- 
formity in our government ; I go for maintaining the confedera- 
tion of the sovereign States under the Constitution as our fathers 
made it, leaving each State at liberty to manage its own affairs 
and own internal institutions. 

Mr. Lincoln makes another point upon me, and rests his 
whole case upon these two points. His last point is, that he will 
wage a warfare upon the Supreme Court of the United States 
because of the Dred Scott decision. He takes occasion, in his 
speech made before the Republican Convention, in my absence, 
to arraign me, not only for having expressed my acquiescence in 
that decision, but to charge me with being a conspirator with 
that court in devising that decision three years before Dred 
Scott ever thought of commencing a suit for his freedom. The 
object of his speech was to convey the idea to the people that the 
court could not be trusted, that the late President could not be 
trusted, that the present one could not be trusted, and that Mr. 
Douglas could not be trusted ; that they were all conspirators in 
bringing about that corrupt decision, to which Mr. Lincoln is 
determined he will never yield a willing obedience. 

He makes two points upon the Dred Scott decision. The 
first is that he objects to it because the court decided that negroes 
descended of slave parents are not citizens of the United States ; 
and, secondly, because they have decided that the Act of Con- 
gress passed 8th of March, 1820, prohibiting slavery in all of the 
Territories north of 36° 30', was unconstitutional and void, and 
hence did not have effect in emancipating a slave brought into 
that Territory. And he will not submit to that decision. He 
says that he will not fight the Judges or the United States Mar- 
shals in order to liberate Dred Scott, but that he will not respect 
that decision, as a rule of law binding on this country, in the 
future. Why not? Because, he says, it is unjust. How is he 
going to remedy it? Why, he says he is going to reverse it. 
How? He is going to take an appeal. To whom is he going 
to appeal? The Constitution of the United States provides that 



72 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the Supreme Court is the ultimate tribunal, the highest judicial 
tribunal on earth ; and Mr. Lincoln is going to appeal from that. 
To whom? I know he appealed to the Republican State Con- 
vention of Illinois, and I believe that Convention reversed the 
decision ; but I am not aware that they have yet carried it into 
effect. How are they going to make that reversal effectual? 
Why, Mr. Lincoln tells us in his late Chicago speech. He ex- 
plains it as clear as light. He says to the people of Illinois that 
if you elect him to the Senate he will introduce a bill to re-enact 
the law which the court pronounced unconstitutional. [Shouts 
of laughter, and voices, '''- Sfot the law."] Yes, he is going to 
spot the law. The court pronounces that law, prohibiting slavery, 
unconstitutional and void, and Mr. Lincoln is going to pass an 
Act reversing that decision and making it valid. I never heard 
before of an appeal being taken from the Supreme Court to the 
Congress of the United States to reverse its decision. I have 
heard of appeals being taken from Congress to the Supreme 
Court to declare a statute void. That has been done from the 
earliest days of Chief Justice Marshall down to the present time. 
The Supreme Court of Illinois do not hesitate to pronounce 
an Act of the Legislature void, as being repugnant to the Con- 
stitution, and the Supreme Court of the United States is vested 
by the Constitution with that very power. The Constitution says 
that the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in 
the Supreme Court and such inferior courts as Congress shall, 
from time to time, ordain and establish. Hence it is the province 
and duty of the Supreme Court to pronounce judgment on the 
validity and constitutionality of an Act of Congress. In this 
case they have done so, and Mr. Lincoln will not submit to it, 
and he is going to reverse it by another Act of Congress of the 
same tenor. My opinion is that Mr. Lincoln ought to be on the 
Supreme Bench himself, when the Republicans get into power, 
if that kind of law knowledge qualifies a man for the bench. 
But Mr. Lincoln intimates that there is another mode by which 
he can reverse the Dred Scott decision. How is that? Why, he 
is going to appeal to the people to elect a President who will 
appoint judges who will reverse the Dred Scott decision. Well, 
let us see how that is going to be done. First, he has to carry 
on his sectional organization, a party confined to the Free States, 
making war upon the slaveholding States until he gets a Repub- 
lican President elected. ["He never will, sir."] I do not 
believe he ever will. But suppose he should ; when that Repub- 
lican President shall have taken his seat (Mr. Seward, for 
instance), will he then proceed to appoint judges? No ! he will 
have to wait until the present judges die before he can do that ; 
and perhaps his four years would be out before a majority of 
these judges found it agreeable to die; and it. is very possible. 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 73 

too, that Mr. Lincoln's senatorial term would expire before these 
judges would be accommodating enough to die. If it should so 
happen ; I do not see a very great prospect for Mr. Lincoln to 
reverse the Dred Scott decision. But suppose they should die, 
then how are the new judges to be appointed ? Why, the Repub- 
lican President is to call upon the candidates and catechise them, 
and ask them, " How will you decide this case if I appoint vou 
judge?" Suppose, for instance, Mr. Lincoln to be a candidate 
for a vacancy on the Supreme Bench to fill Chief Justice Taney's 
place, and when he applied to Seward, the latter would say, 
" Mr. Lincoln, I cannot appoint you until I know how you will 
decide the Dred Scott case?" Mr. Lincoln tells him, and he 
then asks him how he will decide Tom Jones's case, and Bill 
Wilson's case, and thus catechises the judge as to how he will 
decide any case which may arise before him. Suppose you get 
a Supreme Court composed of such judges, who have been 
appointed by a partisan President upon their giving pledges how 
they would decide a case before it arose, — what confidence would 
you have in such a court? Would not your court be prostituted 
beneath the contempt of all mankind? What man would feel 
that his liberties were safe, his right of person or property was 
secure, if the Supreme Bench, that august tribunal, the highest 
on earth, was brought down to that low, dirty pool wherein the 
judges are to give pledges in advance how they will decide all 
the questions which may be brought before them? It is a propo- 
sition to make that court the corrupt, unscrupulous tool of a 
political party. But Mr. Lincoln cannot conscientiously submit, 
he thinks, to the decision of a court composed of a majoritv of 
Democrats. If he cannot, how can he expect us to have confi- 
dence in a court composed of a majority of Republicans, selected 
for the purpose of deciding against the Democracy, and in favor 
of the Republicans? The very proposition carries with it the 
demoralization and degradation destructive of the judicial depart- 
ment of the Federal Government. 

I say to you, fellow-citizens, that I have no warfare to make 
upon the Supreme Court because of the Dred Scott decision. I 
have no complaints to make against that court because of that 
decision. My private opinions on some points of the case may 
have been one way ; and on other points of the case another ; 
in some things concurring with the court, and in others dissent- 
ing ; but what have my private opinions in a question of law to 
do with the decision after it has been pronounced by the highest 
judicial tribunal known to the Constitution? You, sir [address- 
ing the chairman], as an eminent lawyer, have a right to entertain 
your opinions on any question that comes before the court, and 
to appear before the tribunal and maintain them boldly and with 
tenacity until the final decision shall have been pronounced ; 
11 



74 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

and then, sir, whether you are sustained or overruled, your duty 
as a lawyer and a citizen is to bow in deference to that decision. 
I intend to yield obedience to the decisions of the highest tribunals 
in the land in all cases, whether their opinions are in conformity 
with my views as a lawyer or not. When we refuse to abide by 
judicial decisions, what protection is there left for life and 
property? To whom shall you appeal? To mob law, to partisan 
caucuses, to town meetings, to revolution? Where is the remedy 
when you refuse obedience to the constituted authorities? I will 
not stop to inquire whether I agree or disagree with all the 
opinions expressed by Judge Taney or any other judge. It is 
enough for me to know that the decision has been made. It has 
been made by a tribunal appointed by the Constitution to make 
it ; it was a point within their jurisdiction, and I am bound by it. 
But, my friends, Mr. Lincoln says that this Dred Scott 
decision destroys the doctrine of popular sovereignty, for the 
reason that the court has decided that Congress had no power to 
prohibit slavery in the Territories, and hence he infers that it 
would decide that the Territorial legislatures could not prohibit 
slavery there. I will not stop to inquire whether the court will 
carry the decision that far or not. It would be interesting as a 
matter of theory, but of no importance in practice ; for this 
reason, that if the people of a Territory want slavery they will 
have it, and if they do not want it they will drive it out, and you 
cannot force it on them. Slavery cannot exist a day in the 
midst of an unfriendly people with unfriendly laws. There is 
truth and wisdom in a remark made to me by an eminent 
Southern senator, when speaking of this technical right to take 
slaves into the Territories. Said he, " I do not care a fig which 
way the decision shall be, for it is of no particular consequence ; 
slavery cannot exist a day or an hour in any Territory or State 
unless it has affirmative laws sustaining and supporting it, 
furnishing police regulations and remedies ; and an omission to 
furnish them would be as fatal as a constitutional prohibition. 
Without affirmative legislation in its favor, slavery could not 
exist any longer than a new-born infant could survive under 
the heat of the sun, on a barren rock, without protection. It 
would wilt and die for the want of support." So it would be 
in the Territories. See the illustration in Kansas. The Repub- 
licans have told you, during the whole history of that Territory, 
down to last winter, that the pro-slavery party in the Legislature 
had passed a pro-slavery code, establishing and sustaining 
slavery in Kansas, but that this pro-slavery Legislature did not 
truly represent the people, but was imposed upon them by an 
invasion from Missouri ; and hence the Legislature were one 
way, and the people another. Granting all this, and what has 
been the result? With laws supporting slavery, but the people 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 75 

against, there are not as many slaves in Kansas to-day as there 
were on the day the Nebraska bill passed and the Missouri 
Compromise was repealed. Why? Simply because slave- 
owners knew that if they took their slaves into Kansas, where a 
majorit}^ of the people were opposed to slavery, that it would 
soon be abolished, and they would lose their right of property 
in consequence of taking them there. For that reason they 
would not take or keep them there. If there had been a majority 
of the people in favor of slavery, and the climate had been 
favorable, the}^ would have taken them there; but the climate 
not being suitable, the interest of the people being opposed to it, 
and a majority being against it, the slave-owner did not find it 
profitable to take his slaves there, and consequently there are 
not as many slaves there to-day as on the day the Missouri 
Compromise was repealed. This shows clearly that if the 
people do not want slavery the}'- will keep it out ; and if they do 
want it, they will protect it. 

You have a good illustration of this in the Territorial history 
of this State. You all remember that by the Ordinance of 1787 
slavery was prohibited in Illinois ; yet you all know, particularly 
you old settlers who were here in Territorial times, that the 
Territorial Legislature, in defiance of that Ordinance, passed a 
law allowing you to go into Kentucky, buy slaves, and bring 
them into the Territory, having them sign indentures to serve 
you and your posterity ninety-nine years, and their posterity 
thereafter to do the same. This hereditary slavery was intro- 
duced in defiance of the Act of Congress. That was the 
exercise of popular sovereignty, — the right of a Territory to 
decide the question for itself in defiance of the Act of Congress. 
On the other hand, if the people of a Territory are hostile to 
slavery, they will drive it out. Consequently, this theoretical 
question raised upon the Dred Scott decision is worthy of no 
consideration whatsoever, for it is only brought into these 
political discussions and used as a hobby upon which to ride into 
office, or out of which to manufacture political capital. 
«^^ But Mr. Lincoln's main objection to the Dred Scott decision 
I have reserved for my conclusion. His principal objection to 
that decision is that it was intended to deprive the negro of the 
rights of citizenship in the different States of the Union. Well, 
suppose it was, — and there is no doubt that that was its legal 
effect, — what is his objection to it? Why, he thinks that a negro 
ought to be permitted to have the rights of citizenship. He is 
in favor of negro citizenship, and opposed to the Dred Scott 
decision, because it declares that a negro is not a citizen, and 
hence is not entitled to vote. Here I have a direct issue with 
Mr. Lincoln. I am not in favor of negro citizenship. I do not 
believe that a negro is a citizen or ought to be a citizen. I 



76 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

believe that tliis government of ours was founded, and wisely 
founded, upon the white basis. It was made by white men for 
the benefit of white men and their posterity, to be executed 
and managed by white men. I freely concede that humanity 
requires us to extend all the protection, all the privileges, all the 
immunities, to the Indian and the negro which they are capable 
of enjoying consistent with the safety of society. You may then 
ask me what are those rights, what is the nature and extent of 
the rights which a negro ought to have? My answer is that 
this is a question for each State and each Territory to decide for 
itself. In Illinois we have decided that a negro is not a slave, 
but we have at the same time determined that he is not a citizen 
and shall not enjoy any political rights. I concur in the wisdom 
of that policy, and am content with it. I assert that the sover- 
eignty of Illinois had a right to determine that question as we 
have decided it, and I deny that any other State has a right 
to interfere with us or call us to account for that decision. In 
the State of Maine they have decided by their Constitution that 
the negro shall exercise the elective franchise and hold office on 
an equality with the white man. Whilst I do not concur in the 
good sense or correct taste of that decision on the part of Maine, 
I have no disposition to quarrel with her. It is her business, 
and not ours. If the people of Maine desire to be put on an 
equality with the negro, I do not know that anybody in this 
State will attempt to prevent it. If the white people of Maine 
think a negro their equal, and that he has a right to come and 
kill their vote by a negro vote, they have a right to think so, I 
suppose, and I have no disposition to interfere with them. 
Then, again, passing over to New York, we find in that State 
they have provided that a negro may vote, provided he holds 
$250 worth of property, but that he shall not unless he does ; 
that is to say, they will allow a negro to vote if he is rich, but a 
poor fellow they will not allow to vote. In New York they 
think a rich negro is equal to a white man. Well, that is a 
matter of taste with them. If they think so in that State, and 
do not carry the doctrine outside of it, and propose to interfere 
with us, I have no quarrel to make with them. It is their 
business. There is a great deal of philosophy and good sense 
in a saying of Fridley of Kane. Fridley had a lawsuit before 
a justice of the peace, and the justice decided it against him. 
This he did not like ; and standing up and looking at the justice 
for a moment, " Well, Squire," said he, " if a man chooses to make 
a darnation fool of himself, I suppose there is no law against it." 
That is all I have to say about these negro regulations and this 
negro voting in other States where they have systems different 
from ours. If it is their wish to have it so, be it so. There is 
no cause to complain. Kentucky has decided that it is not 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 77 

consistent with her safety and her prosperity to allow a negro to 

have either political rights or his freedom, and hence she makes 

him a slave. That is her business, not mine. It is her right 

under the Constitution of the country. The sovereignty of 

Kentucky, and that alone, can decide that question ; and when 

she decides it, there is no power on earth to which you can 

! appeal to reverse it. Therefore, leave Kentucky as the Constitu- 

\ tion has left her, a sovereign, independent State, with the 

exclusive right to have slavery or not, as she chooses ; and so 

long as I hold power I will maintain and defend her rights 

I against anj' assaults, from whatever quarter they may come. 

n I will never stop to inquire whether I approve or disapprove 

'I of the domestic institutions of a State. I maintain her sovereign 

' rights. I defend her sovereignty from all assault, in the hope 

that she will join in defending us when we are assailed by any 

' outside power. How are we to protect our sovereign rights, to 

keep slavery out, unless we protect the sovereign rights to every 

other State to decide the question for itself? Let Kentucky, or 

South Carolina, or any other State attempt to interfere in Illinois, 

. and tell us that we shall establish slavery, in order to make it 

''imiform, according to Mr. Lincoln's proposition, throughout the 

"Union ; let them come here and tell us that we must and shall 

have slavery, — and I will call on you to follow me, and shed the 

last drop of our heart's blood in repelling the invasion and 

chastising their insolence. And if we would fight for our reserved 

rights and sovereign power in our own limits, we must respect 

the sovereignty of each other State. 

Hence, you find that Mr. Lincoln and myself come to a 
direct issue on this whole doctrine of slavery. He is going to 
wage a war against it everywhere, not only in Illinois, but in his 
native State of Kentuck3^ And why? Because he says that 
the Declaration of Independence contains this language : " We 
hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created 
equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain 
inalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness ;" and he asks whether that instrument does 
not declare that all men are created equal. Mr. Lincoln then 
goes on to say that that clause of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence includes negroes. [" I say not."] Well, if you say not, I 
do not think j^ou will vote for Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln goes 
on to argue that the language " all men " included the negroes, 
Indians, and all inferior races. 

In his Chicago speech he says, in so mar^y words, that it 
includes the negroes, that they were endowed by the Almighty 
with the right of equality with the white man, and therefore that 
that right is divine, — a right under the higher law ; that the law 
of God makes them equal to the white man, and therefore that 



78 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the law of the white man cannot deprive them of that right. 
This is Mr. Lincoln's argument. He is conscientious in his 
belief. I do not question his sincerity ; I do not doubt that he, 
in his conscience, believes that the Almighty made the negro 
equal to the white man. He thinks that the negro is his brother. 
I do not think that the negro is any kin of mine at all. And 
here is the difference between us. I believe that the Declara- 
tion of Independence, in the words, " all men are created equal," 
was intended to allude only to the people of the United States, 
to men of European birth or descent, being white men ; that they 
were created equal, and hence that Great Britain had no right to 
deprive them of their political and religious privileges ; but the 
signers of that paper did not intend to include the Indian or the 
negro in that declaration ; for if they had, would they not have 
been bound to abolish slavery in every State and Colony from 
that da}^? Remember, too, that at the time the Declaration was 
put forth, every one of the thirteen colonies were slaveholding 
colonies ; every man who signed that Declaration represented 
slaveholding constituents. Did those signers mean by that act 
to charge themselves and all their constituents with having 
violated the law of God, in holding the negro in an inferior con- 
dition to the white man? And yet, if they included negroes in 
that term, they were bound, as conscientious men, that day and 
that hour, not only to have abolished slavery throughout the land, 
but to have conferred political rights and privileges on the negro, 
and elevated him to an equality with the white man. ["They 
did not do it."] I know they did not do it ; and the very fact 
that they did not shows that they did not understand the 
language they used to include any but the white race. Did they 
mean to say that the Indian, on this continent, was created equal 
to the white man, and that he was endowed b}'^ the Almighty 
with inalienable rights, — rights so sacred that they could not be 
taken away by any constitution or law that man could pass? 
Why, their whole action toward the Indian showed that they 
never dreamed that they were bound to put him on an equality. 
I am not only opposed to negro equality, but I am opposed to 
Indian equality. I am opposed to putting the coolies, now im- 
porting into this country, on an equality with us, or putting the 
Chinese or any inferior race on an equality with us. I hold that 
the white race, the European race, I care not whether Irish, Ger- 
man, French, Scotch, English, or to what nation they belong, 
so they are the white race, to be our equals. And I am for 
placing them, as our fathers did, on an equality with us. Emi- 
grants from Europe, and their descendants, constitute the people 
of the United States. The Declaration of Independence only 
included the white people of the United States. The Constitution 
of the United States was framed by the white people ; it ought 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 79 

to be administered by them, leaving each State to make such 
regulations concerning the negro as it chooses, allowing him 
political rights or not, as it chooses, and allowing him civil rights 
or not, as it may determine for itself. 

Let us only carry out those principles, and we will have 
peace and harmony in the different States. But Mr. Lincoln's 
conscientious scruples on this point govern his actions, and I 
honor him for following them, although I abhor the doctrine 
which he preaches. His conscientious scruples lead him to 
believe that the negro is entitled by divine right to the civil and 
political privileges of citizenship on an equality with the white 
man. 

For that reason he says he wishes the Dred Scott decision 
reversed. He wishes to confer those privileges of citizenship 
on the negro. Let us see how he will do it. He will 
first be called upon to strike out of the Constitution of 
Illinois that clause which prohibits free negroes and slaves 
from Kentucky or any other State coming into Illinois. 
When he blots out that clause, when he lets down the door or 
opens the gate for all the negro population to flow in and cover 
our prairies, until in midday they will look dark and black as 
night, — when he shall have done this, his mission will yet be 
unfulfilled. Then it will be that he will apply his principles of 
negro equality ; that is, if he can get the Dred Scott decision 
reversed in the mean time. He will then change the Constitu- 
tion again, and allow negroes to vote and hold office, and will 
make them eligible to the Legislature, so that thereafter they can 
have the right men for United States Senators. He will allow 
them to vote to elect the Legislature, the Judges, and the Gov- 
ernor, and will make them eligible to the office of Judge or 
Governor, or to the Legislature. He will put them on an equality 
with the white man. What then? Of course, after making 
them eligible to the judiciary, when he gets Cuftee elevated to 
the bench, he certainly will not refuse his judge the privilege of 
marrying any woman he may select ! I submit to you whether 
these are not the legitimate consequences of his doctrine? If it 
be true, as he says, that by the Declaration of Independence and 
by divine law, the negro is created the equal of the white man ; 
if it be true that the Dred Scott decision is unjust and wrong, be- 
cause it deprives the negro of citizenship and equality with the 
white man, — then does it not follow that if he had the power he 
would make negroes citizens, and give them all the rights and 
all the privileges of citizenship on an equality with white men? 
I think that is the inevitable conclusion. I do not doubt Mr. 
Lincoln's conscientious conviction on the subject, and I do not 
doubt that he will carry out that doctrine if he ever has the 
power ; but I resist it because I am utterly opposed to any 



80 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

political amalgamation or any other amalgamation on this con- 
tinent. We are witnessing the result of giving civil and political 
rights to inferior races in Mexico, in Central America, in South 
America, and in the West India Islands. Those young men who 
went from here to Mexico to fight the battles of their country in 
the Mexican war can tell you the fruits of negro equality with 
the white man. They will tell you that the result of that equality 
is social amalgamation, demoralization, and degradation below 
the capacity for self-government. 

My friends, if we wish to preserve this government we must 
maintain it on the basis on which it was established ; to wit, the 
white basis. We must preserve the purity of the race not only 
in our politics, but in our domestic relations. We must then 
preserve the sovereignty of the States, and we must maintain 
the Federal Union by preserving the Federal Constitution 
inviolate. Let us do that, and our Union will not only be per- 
petual, but may extend until it shall spread over the entire 
continent. 

Fellow-citizens, I have already detained you too long. I 
have exhausted myself and wearied you, and owe you an apology 
for the desultory manner in which I have discussed these topics. 
I will have an opportunity of addressing you again before the 
November election comes off. I come to you to appeal to your 
judgment as American citizens, to take your verdict of approval 
or disapproval upon the discharge of my public duty and my 
principles as compared with those of Mr. Lincoln. If 3'^ou con- 
scientiously believe that his principles are more in harmony with 
the feelings of the American people and the interests and honor 
of the Republic, elect him. If, on the contrary, you believe 
that my principles are more consistent with those great principles 
upon which our fathers framed this government, then I shall ask 
you to so express your opinion at the polls. I am aware that it 
is a bitter and severe contest, but I do not doubt what the decision 
of'the people of Illinois will be. I do not anticipate any personal 
collision between Mr. Lincoln and myself. You all know I am 
an amiable, good-natured man, and I take great pleasure in 
bearing testimony to the fact that Mr. Lincoln is a kind-hearted, 
amiable, good-natured gentleman, with whom no man has a right 
to pick a quarrel, even if he wanted one. He is a worthy 
gentleman. I have known him for twenty-five years, and there is 
no better citizen and no kinder-hearted man. He is a fine 
lawyer, possesses high ability, and there is no objection to him, 
except the monstrous revolutionary doctrines with which he is 
identified and which he conscientiously entertains, and is 
determined to carry out if he gets the power. 

He has one element of strength upon which he relies to 
accomplish his object, and that is his alliance with certain men in 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 81 

this State claiming to be Democrats, whose avowed object is to 
use their power to prostrate the Democratic nominees. He 
hopes he can secure the few men claiming to be friends of the 
Lecompton Constitution, and for that reason you will find he 
does not say a word against the Lecompton Constitution or its 
supporters. He is as silent as the grave upon that subject. 
Behold Mr. Lincoln courting Lecompton votes, in order 
that he may go to the Senate as the representative of Republican 
principles ! You know that that alliance exists. I think you 
will find that it will ooze out before the contest is over. It 
must be a contest of principle. Either the radical Abolition 
principles of Mr. Lincoln must be maintained, or the strong, 
constitutional, national Democratic principles with which I am 
identified must be carried out. I shall be satisfied whatever 
way you decide. I have been sustained by the people of Illinois 
with a steadiness, a firmness, and an enthusiasm which makes my 
heart overflow with gratitude. If I was now to be consigned to. 
private life I would have nothing to complain of. I would even 
then owe you a debt of gratitude which the balance of my life 
could not repay. But, my friends, you have discharged every 
obligation you owe to me. I have been a thousand times paid 
by the welcome you have extended to me since I have entered 
the State on my return home this time. Your reception not only 
discharges all obligations, but it furnishes inducement to renewed 
efforts to serve you in the future. If you think Mr. Lincoln will 
do more to advance the interests and elevate the character of 
Illinois than myself, it is your duty to elect him ; if you think he 
would do more to preserve the peace of the country and 
perpetuate the Union than myself, then elect him. I leave the 
question in your hands, and again tender you my profound thanks 
for the cordial and heartfelt welcome tendered to me this 
evening. 



SPEECH OF HON. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Delivered in Springfield, Saturday Evening, July 17, 1858. (Mr. Doug- 
las was not present.) 

Fellow-Citizens: Another election, which is deemed an 
important one, is approaching, and, as I suppose, the Republican 
party will, without much difficulty, elect their State ticket. But 
in regard to the Legislature, we, the Republicans, labor under 
some disadvantages. In the first place, we have a Legislature to 
elect upon an apportionment of the representation made several 
years ago, when the proportion of the population was far greater 
in the South (as compared with the North) than it now is ; and 

12 



82 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

inasmuch as our opponents hold almost entire sway in the South, 
and we a correspondingly large majority in the North, the fact 
that we are now to be represented as we were years ago, when 
the population was different, is to us, a very great disadvantage. 
We had in the year 1855, according to law, a census, or enumera- 
tion of the inhabitants, taken for the purpose of a new apportion- 
ment of representation. We know what a fair apportionment 
of representation upon that census would give us. We know 
that it could not, if fairly made, fail to give the Republican party 
from six to ten more members of the Legislature than they can 
probably get as the law now stands. It so happened at the last 
session of the Legislature that our opponents, holding the control 
of both branches of the Legislature, steadily refused to give us 
such an apportionment as we were rightly entitled to have upon 
the census already taken. The Legislature steadily refused to 
give us such an apportionment as we were rightfully entitled to 
have upon the census taken of the population of the State. The 
Legislature would pass no bill upon that subject, except such as 
was at least as unfair to us as the old one, and in which, in some 
instances, two men in the Democratic regions were allowed to 
go as far toward sending a member to the Legislature as three 
were in the Republican regions. Comparison was made at the 
time as to representative and senatorial districts, which completely 
demonstrated that such was the fact. Such a bill was passed 
and tendered to the Republican Governor for his signature ; but 
principally for the reasons I have stated, he withheld his 
approval, and the bill fell without becoming a law. 

Another disadvantage under which we labor is, that there 
are one or two Democratic Senators who will be members of the 
next Legislature, and will vote for the election of Senator, who 
are holding over in districts in which we could, on all reasonable 
calculation, elect men of our own, if we only had the chance of 
an election. When we consider that there are but twenty-five 
Senators in the Senate, taking two from the side where they 
rightfully belong, and adding them to the other, is to us a dis- 
advantage not to be lightly regarded. Still, so it is ; we have 
this to contend with. Perhaps there is no ground of complaint 
on our part. In attending to the many things involved in the 
last general election for President, Governor, Auditor, Treasurer, 
Superintendent of Public Instruction, Members of Congress, ot 
the Legislature, County Ofhcers, and so on, we allowed these 
things to happen by want of sufficient attention, and we have no 
cause to complain of our adversaries, so far as this matter is 
concerned. But we have some cause to complain of the refusal 
to give us a fair apportionment. 

There is still another disadvantage under which we labor, 
and to which I will ask your attention. It arises out of the 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 83 

relative positions of the two persons who stand before the State 
as candidates for the Senate. 1 Senator Dougkis is of world-wide 
renown. All the anxious politicians of his party, or who have 
been of his party for years past, have been looking upon him as 
certainly, at no distant day, to be the President of the United 
States. They have seen in his round, joll}^ fruitful face post- 
offices, land-offices, marshalships, and cabinet appointments, 
chargeships and foreign missions, bursting and sprouting out in 
wonderful exuberance, ready to be laid hold of by their greedy 
hands. And as they have been gazing upon this attractive 
picture so long, they cannot, in the little distraction that has 
taken place in the party, bring themselves to give up the charm- 
ing hope ; but with greedier anxiety they rush about him, sustain 
him, and give him marches, triumphal entries, and receptions 
beyond what even in the days of his highest prosperity they could 
have brought about in his favor. On the contrary, nobody has 
ever expected me to be President. In my poor, lean, lank 
face, nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting out. 
These are disadvantages all, taken together, that the Republicans 
labor under. We have to fight this battle upon principle, and 
upon principle alone. I am, in a certain sense, made the stand- 
ard-bearer in behalf of the Republicans. I was made so merely 
because there had to be some one so placed, — I being in nowise 
preferable to any other one of the twenty-five, perhaps a hundred, 
we have in the Republican ranks. Then I say I wish it to be dis- 
tinctly understood and borne in mind that we have to fight this 
battle without many — perhaps without any — of the external 
aids which are brought to bear against us. So I hope those with 
whom I am surrounded have principle enough to nerve themselves 
for the task, and leave nothing undone that can be fairly done 
to bring about the right result. 

After Senator Douglas left Washington, as his movements 
were made known by the public prints, he tarried a considerable 
time in the city of New York ; and it was heralded that, like 
another Napoleon, he was lying by and framing the plan of his 
campaign. It was telegraphed to Washington City, and pub- 
lished in the " Union," that he was framing his plan for the pur- 
pose of going to Illinois to pounce upon and annihilate the 
treasonable and disunion speech which Lincoln had made here 
on the 16th of June. Now, I do suppose that the Judge really 
spent some time in New York maturing the plan of the campaign, 
as his friends heralded for him. I have been able, by noting his 
movements since his arrival in Illinois, to discover evidences con- 
firmatory of that allegation. I think I have been able to see 
what are the material points of that plan. I will, for a little 
while, ask your attention to some of them. What I shall point 
out, though not showing the whole plan, are, nevertheless, the 
main points, as I suppose. 



84 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

They are not very numerous. The first is Popular Sover- 
eignty. The second and third are attacks upon my speech made 
on the 16th of June. Out of these three points — drawing within 
the range of popular sovereignty the question of the Lecompton 
Constitution — he makes his principal assault. Upon these his 
successive speeches are substantially one and the same. On this 
matter of popular sovereignty I wish to be a little careful. 
Auxiliary to these main points, to be sure, are their thunderings 
of cannon, their marching and music, their fizzle-gigs and fire- 
works ; but I will not waste time with them. The}^ are but the 
little trappings of the campaign. 

Coming to the substance, — the first point, — " popular sover- 
eignty." It is to be labeled upon the cars in which he travels ; 
put upon the hacks he rides in ; to be flaunted upon the arches 
he passes under, and the banners which wave over him. It is to 
be dished up in as many varieties as a French cook can produce 
soups from potatoes. Now, as this is so great a staple of the 
plan of the campaign, it is worth while to examine it carefully ; 
and if we examine onl}'- a very little, and do not allow ourselves 
to be misled, we shall be able to see that the whole thing is the 
most arrant Qiiixotism that was ever enacted before a community. 
What is the matter of popular sovereignty? The first thing, 
in order to understand it, is to get a good definition of what it is, 
and after that to see how it is applied. 

I suppose almost everj^ one knows that, in this controversy, 
whatever has been said has had reference to the question of negro 
slaver}^ We have not been in a controversy about the right of 
the people to govern themselves in the ordinary matters of 
domestic concern in the States and Territories. Mr. Buchanan, 
in one of his late messages (I think when he sent up the Le- 
compton Constitution) urged that the main point to which the 
public attention had been directed was not in regard to the great 
variety of small domestic matters, but was directed to the question 
of negro slaver}^ ; and he asserts that if the people had had a fair 
chance to vote on that question, there was no reasonable ground 
of objection in regard to minor questions. Now, while I think 
that the people had not had given, or offered them, a fair chance 
upon that slavery question, still, if there had been a fair submis- 
sion to a vote upon that main question, the President's proposition 
would have been true to the utmost. Hence, when hereafter 
I speak of popular sovereignty, I wish to be understood as ap- 
plying what I say to the question of slavery only, not to other 
minor domestic matters of a Territory or a State. 

Does Judge Douglas, when he says that several of the past 
years of his life have been devoted to the question of " popular 
sovereignty," and that all the remainder of his life shall be devoted 
to it, does he mean to say that he has been devoting his life to 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 85 

securing to the people of the Territories the right to exclude slavery 
from the Territories ? If he means so to say he means to deceive ; 
because he and every one knows that the decision of the Supreme 
Court, which he approves and makes especial ground of attack 
upon me for disapproving, forbids the people of a Territory to 
exclude slavery. This covers the whole ground, from the settle- 
ment of a Territory till it reaches the degree of maturity entitling 
it to form a State Constitution. So far as all that ground is con- 
cerned, the Judge is not sustaining popular sovereignty, but 
absolutely opposing it. He sustains the decision which declares 
that the popular will of the Territory has no constitutional 
power to exclude slavery during their territorial existence. This 
being so, the period of time from the first settlement of a Terri- 
tory till it reaches the point of forming a State Constitution is 
not the thing that the Judge has fought for or is fighting for, 
but, on the contrary, he has fought for, and is fighting for, the 
thing that annihilates and crushes out that same popular sover- 
eignty. 

Well, so much being disposed of, what is left? Why, he is 
contending for the right of the people, when they come to make 
a State Constitution, to make it for themselves, and precisely as 
best suits themselves. I say again, that is Quixotic. I defy con- 
tradiction when I declare that the Judge can find no one to 
oppose him on that proposition. I repeat, there is nobody oppos- 
ing that proposition on ■p7-inci^le. Let me not be misunderstood. 
I know that, with reference to the Lecompton Constitution, I 
may be misunderstood ; but when you understand me correctly, 
my proposition will be true and accurate. Nobody is opposing, or 
has opposed, the right of the people, when they form a Consti- 
tution, to form it for themselves. Mr. Buchanan and his friends 
have not done it ; they, too, as well as the Republicans and the 
Anti-Lecompton Democrats, have not done it ; but on the con- 
trary, they together have insisted on the right of the people to 
form a Constitution for themselves. The difference between the 
Buchanan men on the one hand, and the Douglas men and the 
Republicans on the other, has not been on a question of prin- 
ciple, but on a question oifact. 

The dispute was upon the question of fact, whether the 
Lecompton Constitution had been fairly formed by the people or 
not. Mr. Buchanan and his friends have not contended for the 
contrary principle any more than the Douglas men or the Repub- 
licans. They have insisted that whatever of small irregularities 
existed in getting up the Lecompton Constitution were such as 
happen in the settlement of all new Territories. The question 
was, Was it a fair emanation of the people? It was a question of 
fact, and not of principle. As to the principle, all were agreed. 
Judge Douglas voted with the Republicans upon that matter of 
fact. 



86 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

He and they, by their voices and votes, denied that it was a 
fair emanation of the people. The Administration affirmed that 
it was. With respect to the evidence bearing upon that question 
of fact, I readily agree that Judge Douglas and the Republicans 
had the right on their side, and that the Administration was 
wrong. But I state again that, as a matter of principle, there is 
no dispute upon the right of a people in a Territory, merging 
into a State, to form a Constitution for themselves without out- 
side interference from any quarter. This being so, what is 
Judge Douglas going to spend his life for? Is he going to spend 
his life in maintaining a principle that nobody on earth opposes? 
Does he expect to stand up in majestic dignity, and go through 
his apotheosis and become a god, in the maintaining of a prin- 
ciple which neither man nor mouse in all God's creation is 
opposing? Now something in regard to the Lecompton Con- 
stitution more specially ; for I pass from this other question of 
popular sovereignty as the most arrant humbug that has ever been 
attempted on an intelligent community. 

As to the Lecompton Constitution, I have already said that 
on the question of fact as to whether it was a fair emanation of 
the people or not, Judge Douglas, with the Republicans and some 
Americans, had greatly the argument against the Administration ; 
and while I repeat this, I wish to know what there is in the 
opposition of Judge Douglas to the Lecompton Constitution that 
entitles him to be considered the only opponent to it, — as being 
par excellence the very quintessence of that opposition. I agree 
to the rightfulness of his opposition. He in the Senate and his 
class of men there formed the number three ^ and no more. In 
the House of Representatives his class of men — the Anti-Lecomp- 
ton Democrats — formed a number of about twenty. It took one 
himdred and twenty to defeat the measure, against one hundred 
and twelve. Of the votes of that one hundred and twenty, 
Judge Douglas's friends furnished twenty, to add to which there 
were six Americans and ninety-four Republicans. I do not say 
that I am precisely accurate in their numbers, but I am sufficiently 
so for any use I am making of it. 

Why is it that twenty shall be entitled to all the credit of 
doing that work, and the hundred none of it? Why, if, as 
Judge Douglas says, the honor is to be divided and due credit is 
to be given to other parties, why is just so much given as is con- 
sonant with the wishes, the interests, and advancement of the 
twenty? My understanding is, when a common job is done, or 
a common enterprise prosecuted, if I put in five dollars to your 
one, I have a right to take out five dollars to your one. But he 
does not so understand it. He declares the dividend of credit 
for defeating Lecompton upon a basis which seems unprecedented 
and incomprehensible. 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 87 

Let US see. Lecompton in the raw was defeated. It after- 
ward took a sort of cooked-up shape, and was passed in the En- 
glish bill. It is said by the Judge that the defeat was a good and 
proper thing. If it was a good thing, why is he entitled to more 
credit than others for the performance of that good act, unless 
there was something in the antecedents of the Republicans that 
might induce every one to expect them to join in that good work, 
and at the same time something leading them to doubt that he 
would? Does he place his superior claim to credit on the ground 
that heperformed a good act which was never expected of him ? 
He says I have a proneness for quoting Scripture. If I should 
do so now, it occurs that perhaps he places himself somewhat 
upon the ground of the parable of the lost sheep which went 
astray upon the mountains, and when the owner of the hundred 
sheep found the one that was lost, and threw it upon his shoulders 
and came home rejoicing, it was said that there was more 
rejoicing over the one sheep that was lost and had been found, 
than over the ninety and nine in the fold. The application is 
made by the Saviour in this parable, thus : "Verily, I say unto 
you, there is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner that 
repenteth, than over ninety and nine just persons that need no 
repentance." 

And now, if the Judge claims the benefit of this parable, 
let hhn rej)ent. Let him not come up here and say : " I am the 
only just person ; and you are the ninety-nine sinners ! Repent- 
ance before forgiveness is a provision of the Christian system, 
and on that condition alone will the Republicans grant his for- 
giveness. 

How will he prove that we have ever occupied a different 
position in regard to the Lecompton Constitution or any prin- 
ciple in it? He says he did not make his opposition on the 
ground as to whether it was a free or slave constitution, and he 
would have you understand that the Republicans made their 
opposition because it ultimately became a slave constitution. 
To make proof in favor of himself on this point, he reminds us 
that he opposed Lecompton before the vote was taken declaring 
whether the State was to be free or slave. But he forgets to say 
that our Republican Senator, Trumbull, made a speech against 
Lecompton even before he did. 

Why did he oppose it? Partly, as he declares, because the 
members of the Convention who framed it were not fairly 
elected by the people ; that the people were not allowed to vote 
unless they had been registered ; and that the people of whole 
counties, in some instances, were not registered. For these 
reasons he declares the Constitution was not an emanation, in 
any true sense, from the people. He also has an additional 
■objection as to the mode of submitting the Constitution back to 



bo DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the people. But bearing on the question of whether the dele- 
gates were fairly elected, a speech of his, made something 
more than twelve months ago, from this stand, becomes 
important. It was made a little while before the election of the 
delegates who made Lecompton. In that speech he declared 
there was every reason to hope and believe the election would be 
fair ; and if any one failed to vote, it would be his own culpable 
fault. 

I, a few days after, made a sort of answer to that speech. 
In that answer I made, substantially, the very argument with 
which he combated his Lecompton adversaries in the Senate last 
winter. I pointed to the facts that the people could not vote 
without being registered, and that the time for registering had 
gone by. I commented on it as wonderful that Judge Douglas 
could be ignorant of these facts, which every one else in the 
nation so well knew. 

I now pass from popular sovereignty and Lecompton. I 
may have occasion to refer to one or both. 

When he was preparing his plan of campaign, Napoleon- 
like, in New York, as appears by two speeches I have heard him 
deliver since his arrival in Illinois, he gave special attention to a 
speech of mine, delivered here on the 16th of June last. He 
says that he carefully read that speech. He told us that at 
Chicago a week ago last night, and he repeated it at Blooming- 
ton last night. Doubtless, he repeated it again to-day, though 
I did not hear him. In the first two places — Chicago and 
Bloomington — I heard him ; to-day I did not. He said he had 
carefully examined that speech, — zuheii, he did not say ; but there 
is no reasonable doubt it was when he was in New York 
preparing his plan of campaign. I am glad he did read it 
carefully. He says it was evidently prepared with great care. 
I freely admit it was prepared with care. I claim not to be 
more free from errors than others, — perhaps scarcely so much ; 
but I was very careful not to put anything in that speech as a 
matter of fact, or make any inferences which did not appear to 
me to be true and fully warrantable. If I had made any 
mistake, I was willing to be corrected ; if I had drawn any 
inference in regard to Judge Douglas, or any one else, which 
was not warranted, I was fully prepared to modify it as soon as 
discovered. I planted mj^self upon the truth and the truth only, 
so far as I knew it, or could be brought to know it. 

Having made that speech with the most kindly feelings 
toward Judge Douglas, as manifested therein, I was gratified 
when I found that he had carefully examined it, and had 
detected no error of fact, nor any inference against him, nor 
any misrepresentations of which he thought fit to complain. In 
neither of the two speeches I have mentioned did he make any 



AND STEPHEN A, DOUGLAS. 89 

such complaint. I will thank anyone who will inform me that 
he, in his speech to-day, pointed out anything I had stated 
respecting him, as being erroneous. I presume there is no such 
thing. I have reason to be gratified that the care and caution 
used in that speech left it so that he, most of all others interested 
in discovering error, has not been able to point out one thing 
against him which he could say was wrong. He seizes upon 
the doctrines he supposes to be included in that speech, and 
declares that upon them will turn the issues of this campaign. 
He then quotes, or attempts to quote, from my speech. I will 
not say that he wilfully misquotes, but he does fail to quote 
accurately. His attempt at quoting is from a passage which I 
believe I can quote accurately from memory. I shall make the 
quotation now, with some comments upon it, as I have already 
said, in order that the Judge shall be left entirely without excuse 
for misrepresenting me. I do so now, as I hope, for the last 
time, I do this in great caution, in order that if he repeats his 
misrepresentation it shall be plain to all that he does so wilfully. 
If, after all, he still persists, I shall be compelled to reconstruct 
the course I have marked out for myself, and draw upon such 
humble resources as I have, for a new course, better suited to 
the real exigencies of the case. I set out in this campaign with 
the intention of conducting it strictly as a gentleman, in sub- 
stance at least, if not in the outside polish. The latter I shall 
never be ; but that which constitutes the inside of a gentleman 
I hope I understand, and am not less inclined to practice than 
others. It was my purpose and expectation that this canvass 
would be conducted upon principle, and with fairness on both 
sides, and it shall not be my fault if this purpose and expecta- 
tion shall be given up. 

He charges, in substance, that I invite a war of sections ; 
that I propose all the local institutions of the different States shall 
become consolidated and uniform. What is there in the language 
of that speech which expresses such purpose or bears such con- 
struction? I have again and again said that I would not enter 
into any of the States to disturb the institution of slavery. 
Judge Douglas said, at Bloomington, that I used language most 
able and ingenious for concealing what I really meant ; and that 
while I had protested against entering into the Slave States, I 
nevertheless did mean to go on the banks of the Ohio and 
throw missiles into Kentucky, to disturb them in their domestic 
institutions. 

I said in that speech, and I meant no more, that the institution 
of slavery ought to be placed in the very attitude where the 
framers of this government placed it and left it. I do not under- 
stand that the framers of our Constitution left the people of the 
Free States in the attitude of firing bombs or shells into the 

13 



•90 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Slave States. I was not using that passage for the purpose for 
which he infers I did use it. I said : — 

" We are now far advanced into the fifth year since a policy was 
created for the avowed object and with the confident promise of 
putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that 
policy that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly aug- 
mented. In my opinion it will not cease till a crisis shall have been 
reached and passed. ' A house divided against itself cannot stand.' 
I believe that this government cannot endure permanently half slave 
and half free ; it will become all one thing or all the other. Either 
the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and 
place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the 
course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward 
till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new. 
North as well as South." 

Now you all see, from that quotation, I did not express my 
-wish on anything. In that passage I indicated no wish or 
purpose of my own ; I simply expressed my expectation. Can- 
not the Judge perceive a distinction between a ■puj'fose and an 
expectation f I have often expressed an expectation to die, but 
I have never expressed a wish to die. I said at Chicago, and 
now repeat, that I am quite aware this government has endured, 
half slave and half free, for eighty-two years. I understand 
that little bit of history. I expressed the opinion I did because 
I perceived — or thought I perceived — a new set of causes 
introduced. I did say at Chicago, in my speech there, that I do 
wish to see the spread of slavery arrested, and to see it placed 
where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the 
course of ultimate extinction. I said that because I supposed, 
when the public mind shall rest in that belief, we shall have 
peace on the slavery question. I have believed — and now 
believe — the public mind did rest on that belief up to the 
introduction of the Nebraska bill. 

Although I have ever been opposed to slaver}', so far I 
rested in the hope and belief that it was in the course of ultimate 
extinction. For that reason it had been a minor question with 
me. I might have been mistaken ; but I had believed, and now 
believe, that the whole public mind, that is, the mind of the 
great majority, had rested in that belief up to the repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise. But upon that event I became convinced 
that either I had been resting in a delusion, or the institution 
was being placed on a new basis, — a basis for making it per- 
petual, national, and universal. Subsequent events have greatly 
confirmed me in that belief. I believe that bill to be the begin- 
ning of a conspiracy for that purpose. So believing, I have 
since then considered that question a paramount one. So 
believing, I thought the public mind will never rest till the power 



AND STEPHEN A, DOUGLAS. 91 

of Congress to restrict the spread of it shall again be acknowl- 
edged and exercised on the one hand, or, on the other, all 
resistance be entirely crushed out. I have expressed that 
opinion, and I entertain it to-night. It is denied that there is any 
tendency to the nationalization of slavery in these States. 

Mr. Brooks, of South Carolina, in one of his speeches, when 
they were presenting him canes, silver plate, gold pitchers, and 
the' like, for assaulting Senator Sumner, distinctly affirmed his 
opinion that when this Constitution was formed, it was the belief 
of no man that slavery would last to the present day. He said, 
what I think, that the framers of our Constitution placed the 
institution of slavery where the public mind rested in the hope 
that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. But he went on 
to say that the men of the present age, by their experience, have 
become wiser than the framers of the Constitution, and the inven- 
tion of the cotton gin had made the perpetuity of slavery a 
necessity in this country. 

As another piece of evidence tending to this same point : 
Quite recently in Virginia, a man — the owner of slaves — made 
a will providing that after his death certain of his slaves should 
have their freedom if they should so choose, and go to Liberia, 
rather than remain in slaver}^ They chose to be liberated. But 
the persons to whom they w^ould descend as property claimed 
them as slaves. A suit was instituted, which finall}^ came to the 
Supreme Court of Virginia, and was therein decided against the 
slaves upon the ground that a negro cannot make a choice ; that 
they had no legal power to choose, — could not perform the con- 
dition upon which their freedom depended. 

I do not mention this with any purpose of criticising it, but 
to connect it with the arguments as affording additional evidence 
of the change of sentiment upon this question of slaver}^ in the 
direction of making it perpetual and national. I argue now as 
I did before, that there is such a tendency ; and I am backed, not 
merely by the facts, but by the open confession in the Slave 
States. 

And now as to the Judge's inference that because I wish to 
see slavery placed in the course of ultimate extinction, — placed 
where our fathers originally placed it, — I wish to annihilate the 
State Legislatures, to force cotton to grow upon the tops of the 
Green Mountains, to freeze ice in Florida, to cut lumber on the 
broad Illinois prairie, — that I am in favor of all these ridiculous 
and impossible things. 

It seems to me it is a complete answer to all this to ask if, 
when Congress did have the fashion of restricting slavery from 
free territory ; when courts did have the fashion of deciding that 
taking a slave into a free country made him free, — I say it is a 
sufficient answer to ask if any of this ridiculous nonsense about 



92 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

consolidation and uniformity did actually follow. Who heard of 
any such thing because of the Ordinance of '87 ? because of the 
Missouri Restriction ? because of the numerous court decisions 
of that character ? 

Now, as to the Dred Scott decision ; for upon that he makes 
his last point at me. He boldly takes ground in favor of that 
decision. 

This is one-half the onslaught, and one-third of the entire 

plan of the campaign. I am opposed to that decision in a certain 

/ sense, but not in the sense which he puts on it. I say that in so 

/ far as it decided in favor of Dred Scott's master, and against 

I Dred Scott and his family, I do not propose to disturb or resist 

the decision. 

I never have proposed to do any such thing. I think that in 

/ respect for judicial authority my humble history would not suffer 

/ in comparison with that of Judge Douglas. He would have the 

' citizen conform his vote to that decision ; the member of Congress, 

his ; the President, his use of the veto power. He would make 

it a rule of political action for the people and all the departments 

of the government. I would not. By resisting it as a political 

rule, I disturb no right of property, create no disorder, excite no 

mobs. 

When bespoke at Chicago, on Friday evening of last week, 
he made this same point upon me. On Saturday evening I re- 
plied, and reminded him of a Supreme Court decision which he 
opposed for at least several years. Last night, at Bloomington, 
he took some notice of that repl}^, but entirely forgot to remem- 
ber that part of it. 

He renews his onslaught upon me, forgetting to remember 
that I have turned the tables against himself on that very point. 
I renew the effort to draw his attention to it. I wish to stand 
erect before the country, as well as Judge Douglas, on this ques- 
tion of judicial authority; and therefore I add something to the 
authority in favor of my own position. I wish to show that I am 
sustained by authority, in addition to that heretofore presented. 
I do not expect to convince the Judge. It is part of the plan of 
his campaign, and he will cling to it with a desperate grip. 
Even turn it upon him, — the sharp point against him, and gaff 
him through, — he will still cling to it till he can invent some new 
dodge to take the place of it. 

In public speaking it is tedious reading from documents ; 
but I must beg to indulge the practice to a limited extent. I 
shall read from a letter written by Mr. Jefferson in 1820, and 
now to be found in the seventh volume of his correspondence, at 
page 177. It seems he had been presented by a gentleman of 
the name of Jarvis with a book, or essay, or periodical, called 
the "Republican," and he was writing in acknowledgment of 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 93 

the present, and noting some of its contents. After expressing 
the hope that the work will produce a favorable effect upon the 
minds of the young, he proceeds to say : — 

" That it will have this tendency may be expected, and for that 
reason I feel an urgency to note what I deem an error in it, the more 
requiring notice as your opinion is strengthened by that of many 
others. You seem, in page 84 and 148, to consider the judges as the 
ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions, — a very dangerous 
doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism 
of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more 
so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, 
and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is, ' Boni judicis est 
ampliare jurisdictionem ;' and their power is the more dangerous as 
they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other function- 
aries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no 
such single tribunal, knowing that, to whatever hands confided, with 
the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. 
It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign 
with themselves." 

Thus we see the power claimed for the Supreme Court by 
Judge Douglas, Mr. Jefferson holds, would reduce us to the 
despotism of an oligarchy. 

Now, I have said no more than this, — in fact, never quite so 
much as this ; at least I am sustained by Mr. Jefferson. 

Let us go a little further. You remember we once had a 
National Bank. Some one owed the bank a debt ; he was sued, 
and sought to avoid payment on the ground that the bank was 
unconstitutional. The case went to the Supreme Coiu't, and 
therein it was decided that the bank was constitutional. The 
whole Democratic party revolted against that decision. General 
Jackson himself asserted that he, as President, would not be 
bound to hold a National Bank to be constitutional, even though 
the court had decided it to be so. He fell in precisely with the 
view of Mr. Jefferson, and acted upon it under his official oath, 
in vetoing a charter for a National Bank. The declaration that 
Congress does not possess this constitutional power to charter a 
bank has gone into the Democratic platform, at their National 
Conventions, and was brought forward and reaffirmed in their 
last Convention at Cincinnati. They have contended for that 
declaration, in the very teeth of the Supreme Court, for more 
than a quarter of a century. In fact, they have reduced the 
decision to an absolute nullity. That decision, I repeat, is re- 
pudiated in the Cincinnati platform ; and still, as if to show that 
effrontery can go no further, Judge Douglas vaunts in the very 
speeches in which he denounces me for opposing the Dred Scott 
decision that he stands on the Cincinnati platform. 

Now, I wish to know what the Judge can charge upon me, 



94 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

with respect to decisions of the Supreme Court, which, does not 
lie in all its length, breadth, and proportions at his own door. 
The plain truth is simply this: Judge Douglas \^ for Supreme 
Court decisions when he likes ; and against them when he does 
not like them. He is for the Dred Scott decision because it 
tends to nationalize slavery ; because it is part of the original 
combination for that object. It so happens, singularly enough, 
that I never stood opposed to a decision of the Supreme Court 
till this. On the contrary, I have no recollection that he was 
ever particularly in favor of one till this. He never was in favor 
of any, nor opposed to any, till the present one, which helps to 
nationalize slavery. 

Free men of Sangamon, free men of Illinois, free men 
everywhere, judge ye between him and me upon this issue. 

He says this Dred Scott case is a very small matter at most, — 
that it has no practical effect ; that at best, or rather, I suppose, 
at worst, it is but an abstraction. I submit that the proposition 
that the thing which determines whether a man is free or a 
slave is rather conci'ete than abstract. I think you would con- 
clude that it was, if your liberty depended upon it, and so would 
Judge Douglas, if his liberty depended upon it. But suppose it 
was on the question of spreading slavery over the new Territories 
that he considers it as being merely an abstract matter, and one 
of no practical importance. How has the planting of slaver}^ in 
new countries always been effected? It has now been decided 
that slavery cannot be kept out of our new Territories by any 
legal means. In what do our new Territories now differ in this 
respect from the old Colonies when slavery was first planted 
within them? It was planted, as Mr. Clay once declared, 
and as history proves true, by individual men, in spite of 
the wishes of the people ; the Mother Government refusing to 
prohibit it, and withholding from the people of the Colonies the 
authority to prohibit it for themselves. Mr. Clay says this was 
one of the great and just causes of complaint against Great Britain 
by the Colonies, and the best apology we can now make for 
having the institution amongst us. In that precise condition our 
Nebraska politicians have at last succeeded in placing our own 
new Territories ; the government will not prohibit slavery within 
them, nor allow the people to prohibit it. 

I defy any man to find any difference between the policy 
which originally planted slavery in these Colonies and that policy 
which now prevails in our new Territories. If it does not go into 
them, it is only because no individual wishes it to go. The Judge 
indulged himself doubtless to-day with the question as to what I 
am going to do with or about the Dred Scott decision. Well, 
Judge, will you please tell me what you did about the bank 
decision ? Will you not graciously allow us to do with the Dred 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 95 

Scott decision precisely as you did with the bank decision? You 
succeeded in breaking down the moral effect of that decision : 
did you find it necessary to amend the Constitution, or to set up 
a court of negroes in order to do it? 

There is one other point. Judge Douglas has a ver}^ affec- 
tionate leaning toward the Americans and Old Whigs. Last 
evening, in a sort of weeping tone, he described to us a deathbed 
scene. He had been called to the side of Mr. Clay, in his last 
moments, in order that the genius of "popular sovereignty" 
might duly descend from the dying man and settle upon him, 
the living and most worthy successor. He could do no less than 
promise that he would devote the remainder of his life to " pop- 
ular sovereignty ;" and then the great statesman departs in peace. 
By this part of the " plan of the campaign " the Judge has evidently 
promised himself that tears shall be drawn down the cheeks 
of all Old Whigs, as large as half-grown apples. 

Mr. Webster, too, was mentioned ; but it did not quite come to a 
deathbed scene as to him. It would be amusing, if it were not 
disgusting, to see how quick these compromise-breakers administer 
on the political effects of their dead adversaries, ti-umping up 
claims never before heard of, and dividing the assets among 
themselves. If I should be found dead to-morrow morning, 
nothing but my insignificance could prevent a speech being made 
on my authority, before the end of next week. It so happens 
that in that " popular sovereignty " with which Mr. Clay was 
identified, the Missouri Compromise was expressly reserved ; 
and it was a little singular if Mr. Clay cast his mantle upon 
Judge Douglas on purpose to have that compromise repealed. 

Again, the Judge did not keep faith with Mr. Clay when he 
first brought in his Nebraska bill. He left the Missouri Com- 
promise unrepealed, and in his report accompanying the bill he 
told the world he did it on purpose. The manes of Mr. Clay 
must have been in great agony till thirty days later, when 
"popular sovereignty " stood forth in all its glory. 

One more thing. Last night Judge Douglas tormented him- 
self with horrors about my disposition to make negroes perfectly 
equal with white men in social and political relations. He did 
not stop to show that I have said any such thing, or that it legiti- 
mately follows from anything I have said, but he rushes on with 
his assertions. I adhere to the Declaration of Independence. If 
Judge Douglas and his friends are not willing to stand by it, let 
them come up and amend it. Let them make it read that all men 
are created equal except negroes. Let us have it decided 
whether the Declaration of Independence, in this blessed year of 
1858, shall be thus amended. In his consti*uction of the Declar- 
ation last year, he said it only meant that Americans in America 
were equal to Englishmen in England. Then, when I pointed 



96 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

out to him that by that rule he excludes the Germans, the Irish, 
the Portuguese, and all the other people who have come amongst 
us since the Revolution, he reconstructs his constiTiction. In his 
last speech he tells us it meant Europeans. 

I press him a little further, and ask if it meant to include the 
Russians in Asia ; or does he mean to exclude that vast popula- 
tion from the principles of our Declaration of Independence ? I 
expect ere long he will introduce another amendment to his 
definition. He is not at all particular. He is satisfied with any- 
thing which does not endanger the nationalizing of negro slavery. 
It may draw white men down, but it must not lift negroes up. 
Who shall say, "I am the superior, and you are the inferior " ? 

My declarations upon this subject of negro slavery may be 
misrepresented, but cannot be misunderstood, I have said that I 
do not understand the Declaration to mean that all men were 
created equal in all respects. They are not our equal in color ; 
but I suppose that it does mean to declare that all men are equal 
in some respects ; they are equal in their right to "life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness." Certainly the negro is not our 
equal in color, — perhaps not in man}?' other respects ; still, in the 
right to put into his mouth the bread that his own hands have 
earned, he is the equal of every other man, white or black. In 
pointing out that more has been given you, you cannot be justi- 
fied in taking away the little which has been given him. All I 
ask for the negro is that if you do not like him, let him alone. It 
God gave him but little, that little let him enjoy. 

When our government was established we had the institution 
of slavery among us. We were in a certain sense compelled to 
tolerate its existence. It was a sort of necessity. We had gone 
through our struggle and secured our own independence. The 
framers of the constitution found the institution of slavery 
amongst their own institutions at the time. They found that by 
an eflbrt to eradicate it they might lose much of what they had 
alread}^ gained. They were obliged to bow to the necessity. 
They gave power to Congress to abolish the slave trade at the end 
of twenty years. They also prohibited it in the Territories where 
it did not exist. They did what they could, and yielded to the 
necessity for the rest. I also yield to all which follows from that 
necessity. What I would most desire would be the separation of 
the white and black races. 

One more point on this Springfield speech which Judge 
Douglas says he has read so carefully. I expressed my belief in 
the existence of a conspiracy to perpetuate and nationalize slavery. 
I did not profess to know it, nor do I now. I showed the part 
Judge Douglas had played in the string of facts constituting to 
my mind the proof of that conspiracy. I showed the parts played 
by others. 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 97 

I charged that the people had been deceived into carrying 
the last Presidential election, by the impression that the people of 
the Territories might exclude slavery if they chose, when it was 
known in advance by the conspirators that the court was to de- 
cide that neither Congress nor the people could so exclude 
slavery. These charges are more distinctly made than anything 
else in the speech. 

Judge Douglas has carefully read and re-read that speech. 
He has not, so far as I know, contradicted those charges. In 
the two speeches which I heard he certainly did not. On his 
own tacit admission, I renew that charge. I charge him with 
having been a party to that conspiracy and to that deception for 
the sole purpose of nationalizing slavery. 



The following is the correspondence between the two rival 
candidates for the United States Senate : — 

Mr. Lincoln to Mr. Douglas. 

Chicago, III., July 24, 1858. 

Hon. S. A. Douglas : My dear Sir, — Will be agreeable to you to 
make an arrangement for you and myself to divide time, and address 
the same audiences the present canvass ? Mr. Judd, who will hand 
you this, is authorized to receive your answer; and, if agreeable to 
you, to enter into the terms of such arrangement. 

Your obedient servant, A. Lincoln. 



Mr. Douglas to Mr. Lincoln. 

Chicago, July 24, 1858. 

Hon. A. Lincoln : Dear Sir, — ^Your note of this date, in which 
you inquire if it would be agreeable to me to make an arrangement 
to divide the time and address the same audiences during the present 
canvass, was handed me by Mr. Judd. Recent events have inter- 
posed difficulties in the way of such an arrangement, 

I went to Springfield last week for the purpose of conferring 
with the Democratic State Centra] Committee upon the mode of con- 
ducting the canvass, and with them, and under their advice, made a 
list of appointments covering the entire period until late in October, 
The people of the several localities have been notified of the times 
and places of the meetings. Those appointments have all been made 
for Democratic meetings, and arrangements have been made by which 
the Democratic candidates for Congress, for the Legislature, and 
other offices, will be present and address the people. It is evident, 
therefore, that these various candidates, in connection with myself, 
will occupy the whole time of the day and evening, and leave no 
opportunity for other speeches. 

14 



98 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Besides, there is another consideration which should be kept in 
mind. It has been suggested recently that an arrangement had been 
made to bring out a third candidate for the United States Senate, 
who, with yourself, should canvass the State in opposition to me, 
with no other purpose than to insure my defeat, by dividing the Demo- 
cratic party for your benefit. If I should make this arrangement 
with you, it is more than probable that this other candidate, who has 
a common object with you, would desire to become a party to it, and 
claim the right to speak from the same stand; so that he and you, in 
concert, might be able to take the opening and closing speech in 
every case. 

I cannot refrain from expressing my surprise, if it was your orig- 
inal intention to invite such an arrangement, that you should have 
waited until after I had made my appointments, inasmuch as we were 
both here in Chicago together for several days after my arrival, and 
again at Bloomington, Atlanta, Lincoln, and Springfield, where it was 
well known I went for the purpose of consulting with the State Central 
Committee, and agreeing upon the plan of the campaign. 

While, under these circumstances, I do not feel at liberty to make 
any arrangements which would deprive the Democratic candidates for 
Congress, State offices, and the Legislature from participating in the 
discussion at the various meetings designated by the Democratic State 
Central Committee, I will, in order to accommodate you as far as it 
is in my power to do so, take the responsibility of making an arrange- 
ment with you for a discussion between us at one prominent point in 
each Congressional District in the State, except the Second and Sixth 
districts, where we have both spoken, and in each of which cases you 
had the concluding speech. If agreeable to you, I will indicate the 
following places as those most suitable in the several Congressional 
districts at which we should speak, to wit : Freeport, Ottawa, Gales- 
burg, Quincy, Alton, Jonesboro, and Charleston. I will confer with 
you at the earliest convenient opportunity in regard to the mode of 
conducting the debate, the times of meeting at the several places, 
subject to the condition that where appointments have already been 
made by the Democratic State Central Committee at any of those 
places, I must insist upon you meeting me at the times specified. 
Very respectfully, your most obedient servant, 

S. A. Douglas. 



Mr. Lincoln to Mr. Douglas. 

Springfield, July 29, 1858. 

Hon. S. A. Douglas : Dear Sir, — Yours of the 24th in relation 
to an arrangement to divide time, and address the same audiences, is 
received ; and, in apology for not sooner replying, allow me to say, 
that when I sat by you at dinner yesterday, I was not aware that 
you had answered my note, nor, certainly, that my own note had been 
presented to you. An hour after, I saw a copy of your answer in the 
Chicago "Times," and reaching home, I found the original awaiting 
me. Protesting that your insinuations of attempted unfairness on my 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 99 

part are unjust, and with the hope that you did not very considerately 
make them, I proceed to reply. To your statement that "It has been 
suggested, recently, that an arrangement had been made to bring out 
a third candidate for the United States Senate, who, with yourself, 
should canvass the state in opposition to me," etc., I can only say, 
that such suggestion must have been made by yourself, for certainly 
none such has been made by or to me, or otherwise, to my knowledge. 
Surely you did not deliberately conclude, as you insinuate, that I was 
expecting to draw you into an arrangement of terms, to be agreed on 
by yourself, by which a third candidate and myself, "in concert, 
might be able to take the opening and closing speech in every case." 

As to your surprise that I did not sooner make the proposal to 
divide time with you, I can only say, I made it as soon as I resolved to 
make it. I did not know but that such proposal would come from 
you ; I waited, respectfully, to see. It may have been well known to 
you that you went to Springfield for the purpose of agreeing on the 
plan of campaign ; but it was not so known to me. When your ap- 
pointments were announced in the papers, extending only to the 21st 
of August, I, for the first time considered it certain that you would 
make no proposal to me, and then resolved that, if my friends con- 
curred, I would make one to you. As soon thereafter as I could see 
and consult with friends satisfactorily, I did make the proposal. It 
did- not occur to me that the proposed arrangement could derange 
your plans after the latest of your appointments already made. After 
that, there was, before the election, largely over two months of clear 
time. 

For you to say that we have already spoken at Chicago and 
Springfield, and that on both occasions I had the concluding speech, 
is hardly a fair statement. The truth rather is this : At Chicago, 
July 9th, you made a carefully prepared conclusion on my speech of 
June 16th. Twenty-four hours after, I made a hasty conclusion on 
yours of the 9th. You had six days to prepare, and concluded on me 
again at Bloomington on the 16th. Twenty-four hours after, I con- 
cluded again on you at Springfield. In the mean time, you had made 
another conclusion on me at Springfield, which I did not hear, and of 
the contents of which I knew nothing when I spoke ; so that your 
speech made in daylight, and mine at night, of the 17th, at Spring- 
field, were both made in perfect independence of each other. The 
dates of making all these speeches will show, I think, that in the 
matter of time for preparation, the advantage has all been on your 
side, and that none of the external circumstances have stood to my 
advantage. 

I agree to an arrangement for us to speak at the seven places you 
have named, and at your own times, provided you name the times at 
once, so that I, as well as you, can have to myself the time not cov- 
ered by the arrangement. As to the other details, I wish perfect 
reciprocity and no more. I wish as much time as you, and that 
conclusions shall alternate. That is all. 

Your obedient servant, 

A. Lincoln. 

P. S. — As matters now stand, I shall be at no more of your 
exclusive meetings, and for about a week from to-day a letter from 
you will reach me at Springfield. A. L. 



100 



DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



Mr. Douglas to Mr. Lincoln. 

Bement, Piatt Co., III., July 30, 1858. 

Dear Sir, — Your letter dated yesterday, accepting my proposition 
for a joint discussion at one prominent point in each Congressional 
District, as stated in my previous letter, was received this morning. 

The times and places designated are as follows : — 



Ottawa, La Salle County 
Freeport, Stephenson County 
Jonesboro, Union County 
Charleston, Coles County 
Galesburgh, Knox County 
Quincy, Adams County 
Alton, Madison County 



August 21st, 1858. 

27th, 
September 15th, 

18th, 
October 7th, 

13th, 

15th, 



I agree to your suggestion that we shall alternately open and close 
the discussion. I will speak at Ottawa one hour, you can reply, 
occupying an hour and a half, and I will then follow for half an hour. 
At Freeport, you shall open the discussion and speak one hour; I will 
follow for an hour and a half, and you can then reply for half an hour. 
We will alternate in like manner in each successive place. 
Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

S. A. Douglas. 
Hon. A. Lincoln, Springfield, 111. 



Mr. Lincoln to Mr. Douglas. 

Springfield, July 31, 1858. 

Hon. S. A. Douglas : Dear Sir, — Yours of yesterday, naming 
places, times, and terms for joint discussions between us, was received 
this morning. Although, by the terms, as you propose, you take 
foiir openings and closes, to my three, I accede, and thus close the 
arrangement. I direct this to you at Hillsboro, and shall try to have 
both your letter and this appear in the "Journal" and "Register" of 
Monday morning. Your obedient servant, 

A. Lincoln. 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 101 

FIRST JOINT DEBATE, AT OTTAWA. 

August 21, 1858. 
MR. DOUGLAS'S SPEECH. 

Ladies and Gentlemen : I appear before you to-day for 
the purpose of discussing the leading political topics which now 
agitate the public mind. By an arrangement between Mr. 
Lincoln and myself, we are present here to-da}'- for the purpose 
of having a joint discussion, as the representatives of the two 
great political parties of the State and Union, upon the principles 
in issue between those parties ; and this vast concourse of people 
shows the deep feeling which pervades the public mind in regard 
to the questions dividing us. 

Prior to 1854 this country was divided into two great political 
parties, known as the Whig and Democratic parties. Both were 
national and patriotic, advocating principles that were universal 
in their application. An old line Whig could proclaim his 
principles in Louisiana and Massachusetts alike. Whig principles 
had no boundary sectional line ; they were not limited by the 
Ohio River, nor by the Potomac, nor by the line of the Free and 
Slave States, but applied and were proclaimed wherever the 
Constitution ruled or the American flag waved over the American 
soil. So it was, and so it is with the great Democratic party, 
which, from the da3^s of Jefferson until this period, has proven 
itself to be the historic party of this nation. While the Whig 
and Democratic parties diftered in regard to a bank, the tariff', 
distribution, the specie circular, and the sub-treasury, they agreed 
on the great slavery question which no*w agitates the Union. 
I say that the Whig party and the Democratic party agreed 
on this slavery question, while they differed on those matters of 
expediency to which I have referred. The Whig party and the 
Democratic party jointly adopted the Compromise measures of 
1850 as the basis of a proper and just solution of this slavery 
question in all its forms. Clay was the great leader, with 
Webster on his right and Cass on his left, and sustained by the 
patriots in the Whig and Democratic ranks who had devised 
and enacted the Compromise measures of 1850. 

In 1851 the Whig party and the Democratic party united in 
Illinois in adopting resolutions indorsing and approving the 
principles of the Compromise measures of 1850, as the proper 
adjustment of that question. In 1852, when the Whig party 
assembled in Convention at Baltimore for the purpose of nomi- 
nating a candidate for the Presidency, the first thing it did was 
to declare the Compromise measures of 1850, in substance and 



102 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

in principle, a suitable adjustment of that question. [Here the 
speaker was interrupted by loud and long-continued applause.] 
My friends, silence will be more acceptable to me in the discussion 
of these questions than applause. I desire to address myself to 
your judgment, your understanding, and your consciences, and 
not to your passions or your enthusiasm. When the Democratic 
Convention assembled in Baltimore in the same year, for the 
purpose of nominating a Democratic candidate for the Presidency, 
it also adopted the Compromise measures of 1850 as the basis of 
Democratic action. Thus j^ou see that up to 1853-'54, the Whig 
party and the Democratic party both stood on the same platform 
with regard to the slavery question. That platform was the right 
of the people of each State and each Territory to decide their 
local and domestic institutions for themselves, subject only to the 
Federal Constitution. 

During the session of Congress of 1853-'54, I introduced 
into the Senate of the United States a bill to organize the Terri- 
tories of Kansas and Nebraska on that principle which had been 
adopted in the Compromise measures of 1850, approved by the 
Whig party and the Democratic party in Illinois in 1851, and 
indorsed by the Whig party and the Democratic party in National 
Convention in 1852. In order that there might be no misunder- 
standing in relation to the principle involved in the Kansas and 
Nebraska bill, I put forth the true intent and meaning of this Act 
in these words : " It is the true intent and meaning of this Act 
not to legislate slavery into any State or Territory, or to exclude 
it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to 
form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, 
subject only to the Federal Constitution." Thus you see that up 
to 1854, when the Kansas and Nebraska bill was brought into 
Congress for the purpose of canying out the principles which 
both parties had up to that time indorsed and approved, there 
had been no division in this country in regard to that principle 
except the opposition of the Abolitionists. In the House of 
Representatives of the Illinois Legislature, upon a resolution 
asserting that principle, every Whig and every Democrat in the 
House voted in the affirmative, and only four men voted against 
it, and those four were old line Abolitionists. 

In 1854, Mr. Abraham Lincoln and Mr. Trumbull entered 
into an arrangement, one with the other, and each with his 
respective friends, to dissolve the old Whig party on the one 
hand, and to dissolve the old Democratic party on the other, and 
to connect the members of both into an Abolition part}^, under 
the name and disguise of a Republican party. The terms of that 
arrangement between Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Trumbull have been 
published to the world by Mr. Lincoln's special friend, James H. 
Matheny, Esq., and they were, that Lincoln should have Shields's 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 103 

place in the United States Senate, which was then about to 
become vacant, and that Trumbull should have my seat when my 
term expired. Lincoln went to work to Abolitionize the old 
Whig party all over the State, pretending that he was then as 
good a Whig as ever ; and Trumbull went to work in his part of 
the State preaching Abolitionism in its milder and lighter form, 
and trying to Abolitionize the Democratic party, and bring old 
Democrats handcuffed and bound hand and foot into the Abolition 
camp. In pursuance of the arrangement, the parties met at 
Springfield in October, 1854, and proclaimed their new platform. 
Lincoln was to bring into the Abolition camp the old line Whigs, 
and transfer them over to Giddings, Chase, Fred Douglass, and 
Parson Lovejoy, who were ready to receive them and christen 
them in their new faith. They laid down on that occasion a 
platform for their new Republican party, which was to be thus 
constructed. I have the resolutions of their State Convention 
then held, which was the first mass State Convention ever held 
in Illinois by the Black Republican party, and I now hold them 
in my hands, and will read a part of them, and cause the others 
to be printed. Here are the most important and material resolu- 
tions of this Abolition platform : — 

"1. Resolved, That we believe this truth to be self-evident, that 
when parties become subversive of the ends for which they are 
established, or incapable of restoring the government to the true 
principles of the Constitution, it is the right and duty of the people 
to dissolve the political bands by which they may have been connected 
therewith, and to organize new parties, upon such principles and with 
such views as the circumstances and exigencies of the nation may 
demand. 

" 2. Resolved, That the times imperatively demand the reorgan- 
ization of parties, and, repudiating all previous party attachments, 
names and predilections, we unite ourselves in defense of the liberty 
and Constitution of the country, and will hereafter co-operate as the 
Republican party, pledged to the accomplishment of the following 
purposes : To bring the administration of the government back to 
the control of first principles ; to restore Nebraska and Kansas to the 
position of free Territories ; that, as the Constitution of the United 
States vests in the States, and not in Congress, the power to legislate 
for the extradition of fugitives from labor, to repeal and entirely 
abrogate the Fugitive Slave law ; to restrict slavery to those States in 
which it exists ; to prohibit the admission of any more Slave States 
into the Union ; to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia ; to 
exclude slavery from all the Territories over which the General 
Government has exclusive jurisdiction ; and to resist the acquirement 
of any more Territories, unless the practice of slavery therein forever 
shall have been prohibited. 

" 3. Resolved, That in furtherance of these principles we will 

use such constitutional and lawful means as shall seem best adapted 

* to their accomplishment, and that we will support no man for office, 



104 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

under the General or State Government, who is not positively and 
fully committed to the support of these principles, and whose 
personal character and conduct is not a guarantee that he is reliable, 
and who shall not have abjured old party allegiance and ties." 

Now, gentlemen, your Black Republicans have cheered 
every one of those propositions, and yet I venture to say that you 
cannot get Mr. Luicoln to come out and say that he is now in 
favor of each one of them. That these propositions, one and all, 
constitute the platform of the Black Republican party of this 
day, I have no doubt ; and when you were not aware for what 
purpose I was reading them, your Black Republicans cheered 
them as good Black Republican doctrines. My object in 
reading these resolutions was to put the question to Abraham 
Lincoln this day, whether he now stands and will stand by each 
article in that creed and carry it out. I desire to know whether 
Mr. Lincoln to-day stands, as he did in 1854, in favor of the 
unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave law. I desire him to 
answer whether he stands pledged to-day, as he did in 1854, 
against the admission of any more Slave States into the Union, 
even if the people want them. I want to know whether he 
stands pledged against the admission of a new State into the 
Union with such a Constitution as the people of that State 
may see fit to make. I want to know whether he stands 
to-day pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of 
Columbia. I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged 
to the prohibition of the slave trade between the different States. 
I desire to know whether he stands pledged to prohibit slavery 
in all the Territories of the United States, North as well as 
South of the Missouri Compromise line. I desire him to answer 
whether he is opposed to the acquisition of any more territory, 
unless slavery is prohibited therein. I want his answer to these 
questions. Your affirmative cheers in favor of this Abolition 
platform is not satisfactory. I ask Abraham Lincoln to answer 
those questions, in order that, when I trot him down to lower 
Egypt, I may put the same questions to him. My principles are 
the same everywhere. I can proclaim them alike in the North, 
the South, the East, and the West. My principles will apply 
wherever the Constitution prevails, and the American flag 
waves. I desire to know whether Mr. Lincoln's principles will 
bear transplanting from Ottawa to Jonesboro? I put these 
questions to him to-day distinctly and ask an answer. I have a 
right to an answer, for I quote from the platform of the Repub- 
lican party, made by himself and others at the time that party 
was formed, and the bargain made by Lincoln to dissolve and 
kill the old Whig party, and transfer its members, bound hand 
and foot, to the Abolition party, under the direction of Giddings 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 105 

and Fred Douglass. In the remarks I have made on this 
platform, and the position of Mr. Lincoln upon it, I mean 
nothing personally disrespectful or unkind to that gentleman. I 
have known him for nearly twenty-five years. There were many 
points of sympathy between us when we first got acquainted. 
We were both comparatively boys, and both struggling with 
poverty in a strange land. I was a school-teacher in the town of 
Winchester, and he a flourishing grocery-keep"3r in the town of 
Salem. He was more successful in his occupation than I was 
in mine, and hence more fortunate in this world's goods. 
Lincoln is one of those peculiar men who perform with admira- 
ble skill everything which they undertake. I made as good a 
school-teacher as I could, and when a cabinet-maker I made a 
good bedstead and tables, although my old boss said I succeeded 
better with bureaus and secretaries than anything else ; but I 
believe that Lincoln was always more successful in business than 
I, for his business enabled him to get into the Legislature. I 
met him there, however, and had a sympathy with him, because 
of the up-hill struggle we both had in life. He was then just as 
good at telling an anecdote as now. He could beat any of, 
the boys wrestling, or running a foot-race, in pitching quoits or 
tossing a copper ; could ruin more liquor than all the boys of the 
town together ; and the dignity and impartiality with which he 
presided at a horse-race or fist-fight excited the admiration and 
won the praise of everybody that was present and participated. 
I sympathized with him because he was struggling with difficul- 
ties, and so was L Mr. Lincoln served with me in the Legisla- 
ture in 1836, when we both retired, and he subsided, or became 
submerged, and he was lost sight of as a public man for some 
years. In 1846, when Wilmot introduced his celebrated proviso, 
and the Abolition tornado swept over the country, Lincoln again 
turned up as a member of Congress from the Sangamon district. 
I was then in the Senate of the United States, and was glad to 
welcome my old friend and companion. Whilst in Congress, he 
distinguished himself by his opposition to the Mexican war, 
taking the side of the common enemy against his own country ; 
and when he returned home he found that the indignation of the 
people followed him everywhere, and he was again submerged, 
or obliged to retire into private life, forgotten by his former 
friends. He came up again in 1854, just in time to make this 
Abolition or Black Republican platform, in company with 
Giddings, Lovejoy, Chase, and Fred Douglass, for the Repub- 
lican party to stand upon. Trumbull, too, was one of our own 
contemporaries. He was born and raised in old Connecticut, 
was bred a Federalist, but, removing to Georgia, turned Nullifier 
when Nullification was popular, and as soon as he disposed of 
his clocks and wound up his business, migrated to Illinois, 

15 



100 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

turned politician and lawyer here, and made his appearance in 
1841 as a member of the Legislature. He became noted as the 
author of the scheme to repudiate a large portion of the State 
debt of Illinois, which, if successful, would have brought infamy 
and disgrace upon the fair escutcheon of our glorious State. 
The odium attached to that measure consigned him to oblivion 
for a time. I helped to do it. I walked into a public meeting 
in the hall of the House of Representatives, and replied to his 
repudiating speeches, and resolutions were carried over his 
head denouncing repudiation, and asserting the moral and legal 
obligation of Illinois to pay every dollar of the debt she owed, 
and every bond that bore her seal. Trumbull's malignity has 
followed me since I thus defeated his infamous scheme. 

These two men having formed this combination to Aboli- 
tionize the old Whig party and the old Democratic party, and 
put themselves into the Senate of the United States, in pursuance 
of their bargain, are now carrying out that arrangement. 
Matheny states that Trumbull broke faith ; that the bargain was 
that Lincoln should be the Senator in Shields's place, and Trum- 
bull was to wait for mine ; and the story goes that Trumbull 
cheated Lincoln, having control of four or five Abolitionized 
Democrats who were holding over in the Senate ; he would not 
let them vote for Lincoln, and which obliged the rest of the Aboli- 
tionists to support him in order to secure an Abolition Senator. 
There are a number of authorities for the truth of this besides 
Matheny, and I suppose that even Mr. Lincoln will not deny it. 

Mr. Lincoln demands that he shall have the place intended 
for Trumbull, as Trumbull cheated him and got his, and Tnim- 
bull is stumping the State traducing me for the purpose of securing 
the position for Lincoln, in order to quiet him. It was in con- 
sequence of this arrangement that the Republican Convention 
was empaneled to instruct for Lincoln and nobody else, and it 
was on this account that they passed resolutions that he was their 
first, their last, and their only choice. Archy Williams was 
nowhere, Browning was nobody, Wentworth was not to be 
considered ; they had no man in the Republican party for the 
place except Lincoln, for the reason that he demanded that they 
should carry out the arrangement. 

Having formed this new party for the benefit of deserters 
from Whiggery, and deserters from Democracy, and having laid 
down the Abolition platform which I have read, Lincoln now 
takes his stand and proclaims his Abolition doctrines. Let me 
read a part of them. In his speech at Springfield to the Con- 
vention which nominated him for the Senate, he said : — 

" In my opinion it will not cease until a crisis shall have been 
reached and passed. ' A house divided against itself cannot stand.' 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 107 

I believe this government cannot endure ferfnanently half slave and 
half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved, — I do not 
expect the house to fall ; but I do expect it will cease to be divided. 
It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents 
of slavery will arrest the further spread of it., and place it where the 
public mind shall rest in the belief that it is ifi the course of ultimate 
extinction, or its advocates zvill push it forward till it shall become 
alike lawful in all the States, — old as well as new, North as well as 
South." 

["Good," "good," and cheers.] 

I am delighted to hear you Black Republicans say "good." 
I have no doubt that doctrine expresses your sentiments, and I will 
prove to you now, if you will listen to me, that it is revolutionary, 
and destructive of the existence of this government. Mr. Lincoln, 
in the extract from which I have read, says that this government 
cannot endure permanently in the same condition in which it 
was made by its framers, — divided into Free and Slave States. 
He says that it has existed for about seventy years thus divided, 
and yet he tells you that it cannot endure permanently on the 
same principles and in the same relative condition in which our 
fathers made it. Why can it not exist divided into Free and 
Slave States? Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, Ham- 
ilton, Jay, and the great men of that day, made this government 
divided into Free and Slave States, and left each State perfectly 
free to do as it pleased on the subject of slavery. Why can it 
not exist on the same principles on which our fathers made it? 
They knew when they framed the Constitution that in a coimtry as 
wide and broad as this, with such a variety of climate, pro- 
duction, and interest, the people necessarily required different 
laws and institutions in different localities. They knew that 
the laws and regulations which would suit the granite hills of 
New Hampshire would be unsuited. to the rice plantations of 
South Carolina, and they therefore provided that each State 
should retain its own Legislature and its own sovereignty, with 
the full and complete power to do as it pleased within its own 
limits, in all that was local and not national. One of the reserved 
rights of the States was the right to regulate the relations between 
master and servant, on the slavery question. At the time the 
Constitution was framed, there were thirteen States in the Union, 
twelve of which were slaveholding States and one a Free State. 
Suppose this doctrine of uniformity preached by Mr. Lincoln, 
that the States should all be free or all be slave had prevailed, 
and what would have been the result? Of course, the twelve 
slaveholding: States would have overruled the one Free State, and 
slavery would have been fastened by a Constitutional provision 
on every inch of the American Republic, instead of being left, 
as our fathers wisely left it, to each State to decide for itself. 



108 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Here I assert that uniformity in the local laws and institutions 
of the different States is neither possible nor desirable. If uni- 
formity had been adopted when the government was established, 
it must inevitably have been the uniformity of slavery everywhere, 
or else the uniformity of negro citizenship and negro equality 
everywhere. 

We are told by Lincoln that he is utterly opposed to the 
Dred Scott decision, and will not submit to it, for the reason that 
he says it deprives the negro of the rights and privileges of 
citizenship. That is the first and main reason which he assigns 
for his warfare on the Supreme Court of the United States and 
its decision. I ask you, are you in favor of conferring upon the 
negro the rights and privileges of citizenship? Do you desire to 
strike out of our State Constitution that clause which keeps slaves 
and free negroes out of the State, and allow the free negroes to 
flow in, and cover ^^our prairies with black settlements? Do you 
desire to turn this beautiful State into a free negro colony, in order 
that when Missouri abolishes slavery she can send one hundred 
thousand emancipated slaves into Illinois, to become citizens and 
voters, on an equality with yourselves? If you desire negro 
citizenship, if you desire to allow them to come into the State 
and settle with the white man, if you desire them to vote on an 
equality with yourselves, and to make them eligible to office, to 
serve on juries, and to adjudge your rights, then support Mr. 
Lincoln and the Black Republican party, who are in favor of the 
citizenship of the negro. For one, I am opposed to negro citizen- 
ship in any and every form. I believe this government was made 
on the white basis. I believe it was made by white men, for the 
benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and I am in 
favor of confining citizenship to white men, men of European 
birth and descent, instead of conferring it upon negroes, Indians, 
and other inferior races. 

Mr. Lincoln, following the example and lead of all the little 
Abolition orators, who go around and lecture in the basements of 
schools and churches, reads from the Declaration of Independ- 
ence that all men were created equal, and then asks. How can 
you deprive a negro of that equality which God and the Dec- 
laration of Independence awards to him? He and they maintain 
that negro equality is guaranteed by the laws of God, and that it 
is asserted in the Declaration of Independence. If they think so, 
of course they have a right to do so, and so vote. I do not 
question Mr. Lincoln's conscientious belief that the negro was 
made his equal, and hence is his brother ; but for my own part, 
I do not regard the negro as my equal, and positively deny that 
he is my brother, or any kin to me whatever. Lincoln has 
evidently learned by heart Parson Lovejoy's catechism. He can 
repeat it as well as Farnsworth, and he is worthy of a medal 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 109 

from Father Giddings and Fred Douglass for his Abolitionism. 
He holds that the negro was born his equal and yours, and that 
he was endowed with equality by the Almighty, and that no 
human law can deprive him of these rights, which were guaran- 
teed to him by the Supreme Ruler of the Universe. Now I do 
not believe that the Almighty ever intended the negro to be the 
equal of the white man. If he did, he has been a long time 
demonstrating the fact. For thousands of years the negro has 
been a race upon the earth, and during all that time, in all lati- 
tudes and climates, wherever he has wandered or been taken, he 
has been inferior to the race which he has there met. He 
belongs to an inferior race, and must always occupy an inferior 
position. I do not hold that because the negro is our inferior 
that therefore he ought to be a slave. By no means can such a 
conclusion be drawn from what I have said. On the contrary, 
I hold that humanity and Christianity both require that the negro 
shall have and enjoy every right, every privilege, and every 
immunity consistent with the safety of the society in which he 
lives. On that point, I presume, there can be no diversity of 
opinion. You and I are bound to extend to our inferior and de- 
pendent beings every right, every privilege, every facility and 
immunity consistent with the public good. 

The question then arises. What rights and privileges are 
consistent with the public good? This is a question which each 
State and each Territory must decide for itself; Illinois has de- 
cided it for herself. We have provided that the negro shall not 
be a slave, and we have also provided that he shall not be a citi- 
zen, but protect him in his civil rights, in his life, his person and 
his property, only depriving him of all political rights whatso- 
ever, and refusing to put him on an equality with the white man. 
That policy of Illinois is satisfactory to the Democratic party and 
to me ; and if it were to the Republicans, there would then be no 
question upon the subject. But the Republicans say that he 
ought to be made a citizen, and when he becomes a citizen he 
becomes your equal, with all your rights and privileges. They 
assert the Dred Scott decision to be monstrous because it denies 
that the negro is or can be a citizen under the Constitution. 
Now, I hold that Illinois had a right to abolish and prohibit 
slaver}'^ as she did, and I hold that Kentucky has the same right 
to continue and protect slavery that Illinois had to abolish it. I 
hold that New York had as much right to abolish slavery as Vir- 
ginia has to continue it, and that each and every State of this 
Union is a sovereign power, with the right to do as it pleases 
upon this question of slavery, and upon all its domestic institu- 
tions. Slavery is not the only question which comes up in this 
controversy. There is a far more important one to you, and that 
is, — What shall be done with the free negro? We have settled 



110 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the slavery question as far as we are concerned ; we have pro- 
hibited it in Illinois forever ; and in doing so, I think we have 
done wisely, and there is no man in the State who would be more 
strenuous in his opposition to the introduction of slavery than I 
would. But when we settled it for ourselves, we exhausted all 
our power over that subject. We have done our whole duty, and 
can do no more. We must leave each and every other State to 
decide for itself the same question. In relation to the policy to 
be pursued toward the free negroes, we have said that they shall 
not vote ; whilst Maine, on the other hand, has said that they 
shall vote. Maine is a sovereign State, and has the power to 
regulate the qualifications of voters within her limits. I would 
never consent to confer the right of voting and of citizenship 
upon a negro ; but still I am not going to quarrel with Maine for 
differing from me in opinion. Let Maine take care of her own 
negroes, and fix the qualifications of her own voters to suit her- 
self, without interfering with Illinois, and Illinois will not inter- 
fere with Maine. So with the State of New York. She allows 
the negro to vote, provided he owns two hundred and fifty dol- 
lars' worth of property, but not otherwise. While I would not 
make any distinction whatever between a negro who held prop- 
erty and one who did not, yet if the sovereign State of New 
York chooses to make that distinction, it is her business and not 
mine, and I will not quarrel with her for it. She can do as she 
pleases on this question if she minds her own business, and we 
will do the same thing. Now, my friends, if we will only act 
conscientiously and rigidly upon this great principle of popular 
sovereignty, which guarantees to each State and Territory the 
right to do as it pleases on all things, local and domestic, instead 
of Congress interfering, we will continue at peace one with an- 
other. Why should Illinois be at war with Missouri, or Ken- 
tucky with Ohio, or Virginia with New York, merely because 
their institutions differ? Our fathers intended that our institu- 
tions should differ. They knew that the North and the South, 
having different climates, productions, and interests, required dif- 
ferent institutions. This doctrine of Mr. Lincoln, of uniformity 
among the institutions of the different States, is a new doctrine, 
never dreamed of by Washington, Madison, or the framers of 
this government. Mr. Lincoln and the Republican party set 
themselves up as wiser than these men who made this govern- 
ment, which has flourished for seventy years under the principle 
of popular sovereignty, recognizing the right of each State to do 
as it pleased. Under that principle, we have grown from a 
nation of three or four millions to a nation of about thirty millions 
of people ; we have crossed the Alleghany mountains and 
filled up the whole Northwest, turning the prairie into a garden, 
and building up churches and schools, thus spreading civilization 
and Christianity where before there was nothing but savage 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. Ill 

barbarism. Under that principle we have become, from a 
feeble nation, the most powerful on the face of the earth ; and if 
wi only adhere to that principle, we can go forward increasing 
in territory, in power, in strength, and in glory until the Repub- 
lic 'of America shall be the North Star that shall guide the friends 
of freedom throughout the civilized world. And why can we 
not adhere to the great principle of self-government, upon which 
our institutions were originally based? I believe that this new 
doctrine preached by Mr. Lincoln and his party will dissolve 
the Union if it succeeds. They are trying to array all the 
Northern States in one body against the South, to excite a sec- 
tional war between the Free States and the Slave States, in order 
that the one or the other may be driven to the wall. 

I am told that my time is out. Mr. Lincoln will now ad- 
dress you for an hour and a half, and I will then occupy an half 
hour in replying to him. 



MR. LINCOLN'S REPLY. 

My Fellow-Citizens : When a man hears himself some- 
what misrepresented, it provokes him, — at least, I find it so with 
myself; but when misrepresentation becomes very gross and pal- 
pable, it is more apt to amuse him. The first thing I see fit to 
notice is the fact that Judge Douglas alleges, after running 
through the history of the old Democratic and the old Whig par- 
ties, that Judge Trumbull and myself made an arrangement in 
1854, by which I was to have the place of General Shields in the 
United States Senate, and Judge Trumbull was to have the place 
of Judge Douglas. Now, all I have to say upon that subject is 
that I think no man — not even Judge Douglas — can prove it, 
because it is not ti-tie. I have no doubt he is ^'■conscientious'''' in 
saying it. As to those resolutions that he took such a length of 
time to read, as being the platform of the Republican party in 
1854, I say I never had anything to do with them, and I think 
Trumbull never had. Judge Douglas cannot show that either of 
us ever did have anything to do with them. I believe ////5 is true 
about those resolutions : There was a call for a Convention to 
form a Republican party at Springfield, and I think that my 
friend Mr. Lovejoy, who is here upon this stand, had a hand in 
it. I think this is true, and I think if he will remember accurately, 
he will be able to recollect that he tried to get me into it, and I 
would not go in. I believe it is also true that I went awa}^ from 
Springfield when the Convention was in session, to attend court 
in Tazewell County. It is true they did place my name, though 
without authority, upon the committee, and afterward wrote me 
to attend the meeting of the committee ; but I refused to do so, 
and I never had anything to do with that organization. This is 
the plain truth about all that matter of the resolutions. 



112 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Now, about this story that Judge Douglas tells of Trumbull 
bargaining to sell out the old Democratic party, and Lincoln 
agreeing to sell out the old Whig party, I have the means of 
knowing about that : Judge Douglas cannot have ; and I know 
there is no substance to it whatever. Yet I have no doubt he is 
'''■conscientious" about it. I know that after Mr. Lovejoy got into 
the Legislature that winter, he complained of me that I had told 
all the old Whigs of his district that the old Whig party was 
good enough for them, and some of them voted against him 
because I told them so. Now, I have no means of totally 
disproving such charges as this which the Judge makes. A man 
cannot prove a negative ; but he has a right to claim that when 
a man makes an affirmative charge, he must offer some proof to 
show the truth of what he says. I certainly cannot introduce 
testimony to show the negative about things, but I have a 
right to claim that if a man says he knows a thing, then he must 
show how he knows it. I always have a right to claim this, 
and it is not satisfactory to me that he may be "conscientious" 
on the subject. 

Now, gentlemen, I hate to waste my time on such things ; but 
in regard to that general Abolition tilt that Judge Douglas makes, 
when he says that I was engaged at that time in selling out and 
Abolitionizing the old Whig party, I hope you will permit me 
to read a part of a printed speech that I made then at Peoria, 
which will show altogether a different view of the position I took 
in that contest of 1854. 

Voice: "Put on your specs." 

Mr. Lincoln : Yes, sir, I am obliged to do so ; I am no 
longer a young man. 

"This is the repeal of the Missouri Compromise.^ The foregoing 
history may not be precisely accurate in every particular, but I am 
sure it is sufficiently so for all the uses I shall attempt to make of it, 
and in it we have before us the chief materials enabling us to cor- 
rectly judge whether the repeal of the Missouri Compromise is right 
or wrong. 

"I think, and shall try to show, that it is wrong — wrong in its 
direct effect, letting slavery into Kansas and Nebraska, and wrong in 
its prospective principle, allowing it to spread to every other part of 
the wide world where men can be found inclined to take it. 

"This declared indifference, but, as I must think, covert rea/ zeal 
for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it because of the 
monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our 
republican example of its just influence in the world, — enables the 
enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites ; 

^ This extract from Mr. Lincoln's Peoria speecli of 1854 was read by him in 
the Ottawa debate, but was not reported fully or accurately in either the "Times" 
or "Press and Tribune." It is inserted now as necessary to a complete report of 
the debate. 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 113 

causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially 
because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an 
open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty, — 
criticising the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there 
is no right principle of action but sclf-inte?-est. 

"Before proceeding, let me say I think I have no prejudice against 
the Southern people. They are just what we would be in their 
situation. If slavery did not now exist among them, they would not 
introduce it. If it did now exist among us, we should not 
instantly give it up. This I believe of the masses North and South. 
Doubtless there are. individuals on both sides who would not hold 
slaves under any circumstances ; and others who would gladly intro- 
duce slavery anew, if it were out of existence. We know that some 
Southern men do free their slaves, go North, and become tip-top 
Abolitionists ; while some Northern ones go South and become most 
cruel slave-masters. 

"When Southern people tell us they are no more responsible for 
the origin of slavery than we, I acknowledge the fact. When it is 
said that the institution exists, and that it is very difficult to get rid 
of it, in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the 
saying. I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not 
know how to do myself. If all earthly power were given me, I should 
not know what to do, as to the existing institution. My first impulse 
would be to free all the slaves and send them to Liberia, — to their own 
native land. But a moment's reflection would convince me that 
whatever of high hope (as I think there is) there may be in this, in 
the long run, its sudden execution is impossible. If they were all 
landed there in a day, they would all perish in the next ten days ; and 
there are not surplus shipping and surplus money enough in the 
world to carry them there in many times ten days. What then? 
Free them all and keep them among us as underlings? Is it quite 
certain that this betters their condition? I think I would not hold 
one in slavery, at any rate ; yet the point is not clear enough to me 
to denounce people upon. What next? Free them, and make them 
politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit 
of this ; and if mine would, we well know that those of the great 
mass of white people will not. Whether this feeling accords with 
justice and sound judgment, is not the sole question, if, indeed, it is 
any part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill founded, can- 
not be safely disregarded. We cannot, then, make them equals. It 
does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be 
adopted ; but for their tardiness in this, I will not undertake to judge 
our brethren of the South. 

"When they remind us of their constitutional rights, I acknow- 
ledge them, not grudgingly, but fully and fairly; and I would give 
them any legislation for the reclaiming of their fugitives, which should 
not, in its stringency, be more likely to carry a free man into slavery, 
than our ordinary criminal laws are to hang an innocent one. 

"But all this, to my judgment, furnishes no more excuse for per- 
mitting slavery to go into our own free territory than it would for 
reviving the African slave-trade by law. The law which forbids the 
bringing of s\di\QS from Africa, and that which has so long forbid the 

16 



114 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

taking of them to Nebraska, can hardly be distinguished on any moral 
principle ; and the repeal of the former could find quite as plausible 
excuses as that of the latter." 

I have reason to know that Judge Douglas knows that I said 
this. I think he has the answer here to one of the questions he 
put to me. I do not mean to allow him to catechise me unless he 
pays back for it in kind. I will not answer questions one after 
another, unless he reciprocates ; but as he has made this inquiry, 
and I have answered it before, he has got it without my getting 
anything in return. He has got my answer on the Fugitive 
Slave law. 

Now, gentlemen, I don't want to read at any greater length ; 
but this is the true complexion of all I have ever said in regard 
to the institution of slavery and the black race. This is the 
whole of it ; and anything that argues me into his idea of perfect 
social and political equality with the negro, is but a specious and 
fantastic arrangement of words, by which a man can prove a 
horse-chestnut to be a chestnut horse. I will say here, while 
upon this subject, that I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, 
to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it 
exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no 
/ inclination to do so. I have no purpose to introduce political 
and social equality between the white and the black races. 
There is a ph5'sical difference between the two which, in my 
judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon 
the footing of perfect equality; and inasmuch as it becomes a 
necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge 
Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the 
superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary, 
I but I hold that, notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the 
world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enu- 
merated in the Declaration of Independence, — the right to life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much 
entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas 
he is not my equal in many respects, — certainly not in color, 
perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the 
right to eat the bread, without the leave of anybody else, which 
his own hand earns, he is my equal, and the equal of Jtidge 
Douglas, and the equal of every living man. 

Now I pass on to consider one or two more of these little 
follies. The Judge is woefully at fault about his early friend 
Lincoln being a "grocery-keeper." I don't know as it would 
be a great sin, if I had been ; but he is mistaken. Lincoln never 
kept a grocery anywhere in the world. It is true that Lin- 
coln did work the latter part of one winter in a little still-house, 
up at the head of a hollow. And so I think m}- friend the Judge 
is equally at fault when he charges me at the time when I was in 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 115 

Congress of having opposed our soldiers who were fighting in 
the Mexican war. The Judge did not make his charge very dis- 
tinctly, but I can tell you what he can prove, by referring to the 
record. You remember I was an old Whig, and whenever the 
Democratic party tried to get me to vote that the wj'r had been 
righteously begun by the President, I would not to it. But 
whenever the}^ asked for any money, or land-warrants, or any- 
thing to pay the soldiers there, during all that time, I gave the 
same vote that Judge Douglas did. You can think as you please 
as to whether that was consistent. Such is the truth ; and the 
Judge has the right to make all he can out of it. But when he, 
by a general charge, conveys the idea that I withheld supplies 
from the soldiers who were fighting in the Mexican war, or did 
anything else to hinder the soldiers, he is, to say the least, 
grossly and altogether mistaken, as a consultation of the records 
will prove to him. 

As I have not used up so much of my time as I had sup- 
posed, I will dwell a little longer upon one or two of these minor 
topics upon which the Judge has spoken. He has read from my 
speech in Springfield, in which I say that "a house divided 
against itself cannot stand." Does the Judge say h ca?i stand? 
I don't know whether he does or not. The Judge does not seem 
to be attending to me just now, but I would like to know if it is 
his opinion that a house divided against itself can stand. If he 
does, then there is a question of veracity, not between him and 
me, but between the Judge and an authority of a somewhat 
higher character. 

Now, my friends, I ask your attention to this matter for the 
purpose of saying something seriously. I know that the Judge 
may readily enough agree with me that the maxim which was 
put forth by the Saviour is true, but he may allege that I mis- 
apply it ; and the Judge has a right to urge that, in my applica- 
tion, I do misapply it, and then I have a right to show that I do 
not misapply it. When he undertakes to say that because I 
think this nation, so far as the question of slavery is concerned, 
will all become one thing or all the other, I am in favor of bring- 
ing about a dead uniformity in the various States, in all their in- 
stitutions, he argues erroneously. The great variety of the local 
institutions in the States, springing from diflferences in the soil, 
differences in the face of the country, and in the climate, are 
bonds of Union. They do not make "a house divided against 
itself," but they make a house united. If they produce in one 
section of the country what is called for by the wants of another 
section, and this other section can supply the wants of the first, 
they are not matters of discord, but bonds of union, true bonds 
of union. But can this question of slavery be considered as 
among t/iese varieties in the institutions of the country? I leave 



116 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

it to you to say whether, in the history of our government, 
this institution of slavery has not always failed to be a bond of 
union, and, on the contrary, been an apple of discord and an 
element of division in the house. I ask you to consider whether, 
so long as the moral constitution of men's minds shall con- 
tinue to be the same, after this generation and assemblage shall 
sink into the grave, and another race shall arise, with the same 
moral and intellectual development we have, — whether, if that 
institution is standing in the same irritating position in which it 
now is, it will not continue an element of division? If so, then 
I have a right to say that, in regard to this question, the Union 
is a house divided against itself; and when the Judge reminds 
me that I have often said to him that the institution of slavery 
has existed for eighty years in some States, and yet it does not 
exist in some others, I agree to the fact, and I account for it by 
looking at the position in which our fathers originally placed it, 
— restricting it from the new Territories where it had not gone, 
and legislating to cutoff its source by the abrogation of the slave- 
trade, thus putting the seal of legislation against its spread. The 
public mind did rest in the belief that it was in the course ot 
ultimate extinction. But lately, I think — and in this I charge 
nothing on the Judge's motives — lately, I think, that he, and 
those acting with him, have placed that institution on a new 
basis, which looks to the ^perpetuity and nationalization of slavery. 
And while it is placed upon this new basis, I say, and I have said, 
that I believe we shall not have peace upon the question until the 
opponents of slavery arrest the further spread of it, and place it 
where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the 
course of ultimate extinction ; or, on the other hand, that its 
advocates will push it forward until it shall become alike lawful 
in all the States, old as well as new. North as well as South. 
Now, I believe if we could arrest the spread, and place it where 
Washington and Jefferson and Madison placed it, it zuould be in 
the course of ultimate extinction, and the public mind ■would, as 
for eighty years past, believe that it was in the course of ultimate 
extinction. The crisis would be past, and the institution might 
be let alone for a hundred years, if it should live so long, in the 
States where it exists ; yet it would be going out of existence in 
the way best for both the black and the white races. 

A Voice: "Then do you repudiate Popular Sovereignty?" 
Mr. Lincoln : Well, then, let us talk about Popular Sover- 
eignty ! What is Popular Sovereignty? Is it the right of the 
people to have slavery or not have it, as they see fit, in the 
Territories ? I will state — and I have an able man to watch me — 
my understanding is that Popular Sovereignty, as now applied to 
the question of slavery, does allow the people of a Territory to 
have slavery if they want to, but does not allow them 7iot to have 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 117 

it if they do not want it. I do not mean that if this vast con- 
course of people were in a Territory of the United States, any 
one of them would be obliged to have a slave if he did not want 
one ; but I do say that, as I understand the Dred Scott decision, 
if any one man wants slaves, all the rest have no way of keeping 
that one man from holding them. 

When I made my speech at Springfield, of which the Judge 
complains, and from which he quotes, I really was not thinking 
of the things which he ascribes to me at all. I had no thought 
in the world that I was doing anything to bring about a war 
between the Free and Slave States. I had no thought in the 
world that I was doing anything to bring about a political and 
social equality of the black and white races. It never occurred 
to me that I was doing anything or favoring anything to reduce 
to a dead uniformity all the local institutions of the various 
States. But I must say, in all fairness to him, if he thinks I am 
doing something which leads to these bad results, it is none the 
better that I did not mean it. It is just as fatal to the country, 
if I have any influence in producing it, whether I intend it or 
not. But can it be true that placing this institution upon the 
original basis — the basis upon which our fathers placed it — can 
have any tendency to set the Northern and the Southern States 
at war with one another, or that it can have any tendency to 
make the people of Vermont raise sugar-cane, because they raise 
it in Louisiana, or that it can compel the people of Illinois to cut 
pine logs on the Grand Prairie, where they will not grow, because 
they cut pine logs in Maine, where they do grow? The Judge 
says this is a new principle started in regard to this question. 
Does the Judge claim that he is working on the plan of the 
founders of government? I think he says in some of his 
speeches — indeed, I have one here now — that he saw evidence 
of a policy to allow slavery to be south of a certain line, while 
north of it it should be excluded, and he saw an indisposition on 
the part of the country to stand upon that policy, and therefore 
he set about studying the subject upon original -princi-ples, and 
upon 07'iginal -principles he got up the Nebraska bill ! I am 
fighting it upon these "original principles," — fighting it in the 
Jeftersonian, Washingtonian, and Madisonian fashion. 

Now, my friends, I wish you to attend for a little while to 
one or two other things in that Springfield speech. My main 
object was to show, so far as my humble ability was capable of 
showing, to the people of this country what I believed was the 
truth, — that there was a tendency^ if not a conspiracy, among those 
who have engineered this slavery question for the last four or 
five years, to make slavery perpetual and universal in this nation. 
Having made that speech principally for that object, after arrang- 
ing the evidences that I thought tended to prove my proposition, 
I concluded with this bit of comment : — 



118 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

"We cannot absolutely know that these exact adaptations are the 
result of preconcert ; but when we see a lot of framed timbers, dif- 
ferent portions of which we know have been gotten out at different 
times and places, and by different workmen — Stephen, Franklin, 
Roger, and James, for instance, — and when we see these timbers 
joined together, and see they exactly make the frame of a house or a 
mill, all the tenons and mortises exactly fitting, and all the lengths 
and proportions of the different pieces exactly adapted to their respect- 
ive places, and not a piece too many or too few, — not omitting even 
the scaffolding, — or if a single piece be lacking, we see the place in 
the frame exactly fitted and prepared yet to bring such piece in, — in 
such a case we feel it impossible not to believe that Stephen and 
Franklin and Roger and James all understood one another from the 
beginning, and all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn before 
the first blow was struck," 

When my friend Judge Douglas came to Chicago on the 9th 
of July, this speech having been delivered on the 16th of June, he 
made an harangue there, in which he took hold of this speech of 
mine, showing that he had carefully read it ; and while he paid 
no attention to this matter at all, but complimented me as being 
a "kind, amiable, and intelligent gentleman,'' notwithstanding I 
had said this, he goes on and eliminates, or draws out, from my 
speech this tendency of mine to set the States at war with one 
another, to make all the institutions uniform, and set the niggers 
and white people to marrying together. Then, as the Judge had 
complimented me with these pleasant titles (I must confess to 
my weakness), I was a little "taken," for it came from a great 
man. I was not ver3r much accustomed to flattery, and it came 
the sweeter to me. I was rather like the Hoosier, with the 
gingerbread, when he said he reckoned he loved it better than 
any other man, and got less of it. As the Judge had so flattered 
me, I could not make up m}' mind that he meant to deal unfairly 
with me ; so I went to work to show him that he misunderstood 
the whole scope of my speech, and that I really never intended 
to set the people at war with one another. As an illustration, 
the next time I met him, which was at Springfield, I used this 
expression, that I claimed no right under the Constitution, nor 
had I any inclination, to enter into the Slave States and interfere 
with the institutions of slavery. He says upon that : Lincoln 
will not enter into the Slave States, but will go to the banks of 
the Ohio, on this side, and shoot over ! He runs on, step by step, 
in the horse-chestnut style of argument, until in the Springfield 
speech he says : "Unless he shall be successful in firing his bat- 
teries, until he shall have extinguished slavery in all the States, 
the Union shall be dissolved." Now, I don't think that was 
exactly the way to treat "a kind, amiable, intelligent gentleman." 
I know if I had asked the Judge to show when or where it was I 
had said that, if I didn't succeed in firing into the Slave States 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 119 

until slavery should be extinguished, the Union should be dis- 
solved, he could not have shown it. I understand what he would 
do. He would say, "I don't mean to quote from you, but this 
was the result of what you say." But I have the right to ask, and 
I do ask now, Did you not put it in such a form that an ordi- 
nary reader or listener would take it as an expression from me'i 
In a speech at Springfield, on the night of the 17th, I 
thought I might as well attend to my own business a little, and 
I recalled his attention as well as I could to this charge of 
conspiracy to nationalize slavery. I called his attention to the 
fact that he had acknowledged, in my hearing twice, that he 
had carefully read the speech, and, in the language of the 
lawyers, as he had twice read the speech, and still had put in no 
plea or answer, I took a default on him. I insisted that I had a 
right then to renew that charge of conspiracy. Ten days after- 
ward I met the Judge at Clinton, — that is to say, I was on the 
ground, but not in the discussion, — and heard him make a 
speech. Then he comes in with his plea to this charge, for the 
first time ; and his plea when put in, as well as I can recollect 
it, amounted to this : that he never had any talk with Judge 
Taney or the President of the United States with regard to 
the Dred Scott decision before it was made. I (Lincoln) ought 
to know that the man who makes a charge without knowing it 
to be true, falsifies as much as he who knowingly tells a false- 
hood ; and, lastly, that he would pronounce the whole thing a 
falsehood ; but he would make no personal application of the 
charge of falsehood, not because of an}'- regard for the " kind, 
amiable, intelligent gentleman," but because of his own personal 
self-respect ! I have understood since then (but [turning to 
Judge Douglas] will not hold the Judge to it if he is not willing) 
that he has broken through the " self-respect," and has got to 
saying the thing out. The Judge nods to me that it is so. It is 
fortunate for me that I can keep as good-humored as I do, when 
the Judge acknowledges that he has been trying to make a 
question of veracity with me. I know the Judge is a great 
man, while I am only a small man, but I feel that I have got 
him. I demur to that plea. I waive all objections that it was 
not filed till after default was taken, and demur to it upon the 
merits. What if Judge Douglas never did talk with Chief 
Justice Taney and the President before the Dred Scott decision 
was made, does it follow that he could not have had as perfect 
an understanding without talking as with it? I am not disposed 
to stand upon my legal advantage. I am disposed to take his 
denial as being like an answer in chancery, that he neither had 
any knowledge, information, or belief in the existence of such a 
conspiracy. I am disposed to take his answer as being as broad 
as though he had put it in these words. And now, I ask, even if 



120 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

he had done so, have not I a right to -prove it on him, and to offer 
the evidence of more than two witnesses, by whom to prove it ; 
and if the evidence proves the existence of the conspiracy, does 
his broad answer denying all knowledge, information, or belief, 
disturb the fact? It can only show that he was tised by con- 
spirators, and was not a leader of them. 

Now, in regard to his reminding me of the moral rule that 
persons who tell what they do not know to be true, falsify as 
much as those who knowingl}'- tell falsehoods. I remember the 
rule, and it must be borne in mind that in what I have read to 
you, I do not say that I know such a conspiracy to exist. To 
that I r&^\y, I believe it. If the Judge says that I do not believe 
it, then he says what he does not know, and falls within his own 
rule, that he who asserts a thing which he does not know to be 
true, falsifies as much as he who knowingly tells a falsehood. 
I want to call your attention to a little discussion on that branch 
of the case, and the evidence which brought my mind to the 
conclusion which I expressed as my belie/. If, in arraying that 
evidence, I had stated anything which was false or erroneous, it 
needed but that Judge Douglas should point it out, and I would 
have taken it back, with all the kindness in the world. I do not 
deal in that way. If I have brought forward anything not a 
fact, if he will point it out, it will not even ruffie me to take it 
back. But if he will not point out anything erroneous in the 
evidence, is it not rather for him to show, by a comparison of 
the evidence, that I have r^«5£?«^^ falsely, than to call the "kind, 
amiable, intelligent gentleman" a liar? If I have reasoned 
to a false conclusion, it is the vocation of an able debater 
to show by argument that I have wandered to an erroneous 
conclusion. I want to ask your attention to a portion of the 
Nebraska bill, which Judge Douglas has quoted ; " It being the true 
intent and meaning of this Act, not to legislate slavery into any Ter- 
ritory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people 
thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institu- 
tions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the 
United States." Thereupon Judge Douglas and others began to 
argue in favor of " Popular Sovereignty," — the right of the people 
to have slaves if they wanted them, and to exclude slavery if 
they did not want them. "But," said, in substance, a Senator 
from Ohio (Mr. Chase, I believe), "we more than suspect that 
you do not mean to allow the people to exclude slaver}?^ if they 
wish to ; and if you do mean it, accept an amendment which I 
propose, expressly authorizing the people to exclude slavery. "^ 
I believe I have the amendment here before me, which was 
offered, and under which the people of the Territory, through 
their representatives, might, if they saw fit, prohibit the existence 
of slavery therein. And now I state it as a /act, to be taken 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 121 

back if there is any mistake about it, that Judge Douglas and 
those acting with him voted that amendment dozun. I now think 
that those men who voted it down had a real reason for doing 
so. They know what that reason was. It looks to us, since we 
have seen the Dred Scott decision pronounced, holding that 
" under the Constitution," the people cannot exclude slavery, — 
I say it looks to outsiders, poor, simple, "amiable, intelligent 
gentlemen," as though the niche was left as a place to put that 
Dred Scott decision in, — a niche which would have been spoiled 
by adopting the amendment. And now, I say again, if this was 
not the reason, it will avail the Judge much more to calmly and 
good-humoredly point out to these people what that other 
reason was for voting the amendment down, than, swelling 
himself up, to vociferate that he may be provoked to call some- 
body a liar. 

Again : there is in that same quotation from the Nebraska 
bill this clause : " It being the true intent and meaning of this 
bill not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State."" I have 
always been puzzled to know what business the word "State" 
had in that connection. Judge Douglas knows. He put it there. 
He knows what he put it there for. "We outsiders cannot say 
what he put it there for. The law they were passing was not 
about States, and was not making provisions for States. What 
was it placed there for? After seeing the Dred Scott decision, 
which holds that the people cannot exclude slavery from a 
Territory, if another Dred Scott decision shall come, holding 
that they cannot exclude it from a State, we shall discover that 
when the word was originally put there, it was in view of some- 
thing which was to come in due time, we shall see that it was 
the other half of something. I now say again, if there is any 
different reason for putting it there. Judge Douglas, in a good- 
humored way, wdthout calling anybody a liar, can tell what the 
reason zvas. 

When the Judge spoke at Clinton, he came very near 
making a charge of falsehood against me. He used, as I found 
it printed in a newspaper, which, I remember, was very nearly 
like the real speech, the following language : 

"I did not answer the charge [of conspiracy] before, for the 
reason that I did not suppose there was a man in America with a heart 
so corrupt as to believe such a charge could be true. I have too 
much respect for Mr. Lincoln to suppose he is serious in making the 
charge." 

I confess this is rather a curious view, that out of respect for 
me he should consider I was making what I deemed rather a 
grave charge in fun. I confess it strikes me rather strangely. 
But I let it pass. As the Judge did not for a moment believe that 

17 



122 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

there was a man in America whose heart was so "corrupt" as to 
make such a charge, and as he places me among the "men in 
America" who have hearts base enough to make such a charge, 
I hope he will excuse me if I hunt out another charge very like 
this ; and if it should turn out that in hunting I should find that 
other, and it should turn out to be Judge Douglas himself who 
made it, I hope he will reconsider this question of the deep cor- 
ruption of heart he has thought fit to ascribe to me. In Judge 
Douglas's speech of March 22, 1858, which I hold in my hand, he 
says : — 

"In this connection there is another topic to which I desire to 
allude. I seldom refer to the course of newspapers, or notice the 
articles which they publish in regard to myself; but the course of the 
Washington 'Union' has been so extraordinary for the last two or 
three months, that I think it well enough to make some allusion to 
it. It has read me out of the Democratic party every other day, at 
least for two or three months, and keeps reading me out, and, as if it 
had not succeeded, still continues to read me out, using such terms as 
'traitor,' 'renegade,' 'deserter,' and other kind and polite epithets of 
that nature. Sir, I have no vindication to make of my Democracy 
against the Washington 'Union,' or any other newspapers. I am 
willing to allow my history and action for the last twenty years to speak 
for themselves as to my political principles and my fidelity to political 
obligations. The Washington 'Union' has a personal grievance. 
When its editor was nominated for public printer, I declined to vote 
for him, and stated that at some time I might give my reasons for 
doing so. Since I declined to give that vote, this scurrilous abuse, 
these vindictive and constant attacks have been repeated almost daily 
on me. Will my friend from Michigan read the article to which I 
allude?" 

This is a part of the speech. You must excuse me from read- 
ing the entire article of the Washington "Union," as Mr. Stuart 
read it for Mr. Douglas. The Judge goes on and sums up, as I 
think, correctly: — 

"Mr. President, you here find several distinct propositions 
advanced boldly by the Washington 'Union' editorially, and apparently 
authoritatively ; and any man who questions any of them is denounced 
as an Abolitionist, a Free-soiler, a fanatic. The propositions are, 
first, that the primary object of all government at its original institu- 
tion is the protection of person and property ; second, that the Con- 
stitution of the United States declares that the citizens of each State 
shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the 
several States ; and that, therefore, thirdly, all State laws, whether 
organic or otherwise, which prohibit the citizens of one State from 
settling in another with their slave property, and especially declaring 
it forfeited, are direct violations of the original intention of the gov- 
ernment and Constitution of the United States ; and, fourth, that the 
emancipation of the slaves of the Northern States was u gross outrage 
of the rights of property, inasmuch as it was involuntarily done on the 
oart of the owner. 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 123 

"Remember that this article was published in the 'Union' on the 
17th of November, and on the 18th appeared the first article giving 
the adhesion of the 'Union' to the Lecompton Constitution. It was 
in these words : — 

" 'Kansas and Her Constitution. — The vexed question is 
settled. The problem is solved. The dead point of danger is passed. 
All serious trouble to Kansas affairs is over and gone' — 

"And a column nearly of the same sort. Then, when you come 
to look into the Lecompton Constitution, you find the same doctrine 
incorporated in it which was put forth editorially in the 'Union.' 
What is it? 

" 'Article 7, Section 1. The right of property is before and 
higher than any constitutional sanction ; and the right of the owner 
of a slave to such slave and its increase is the same and as inviolable 
as the right of the owner of any property whatever.' 

"Then in the schedule is a provision that the Constitution may 
be amended after 1864 by a two-thirds vote. 

" 'But no alteration shall be made to affect the right of property 
in the ownership of slaves.' 

"It will be seen by these clauses in the Lecompton Constitution 
that they are identical in spirit with the authoritative article in the 
Washington 'Union' of the day previous to its indorsement of this 
Constitution." 

I pass over some portions of the speech, and I hope that any 
one who feels interested in this matter will read the entire section 
of the speech, and see whether I do the Judge injustice. He 
proceeds : — 

"When I saw that article in the 'Union' of the 17th of November, 
followed by the glorification of the Lecompton Constitution on the 
18th of November, and this clause in the Constitution asserting the 
doctrine that a State has no right to prohibit slavery within its limits, 
I saw that there was ^ fatal blow being struck at the sovereignty of 
the States of this Union." 

I stop the quotation there, again requesting that it may all 
be read. I have read all of the portion I desire to comment upon. 
What is this charge that the Judge thinks I must have a very cor- 
rupt heart to make? It was a purpose on the part of certain high 
functionaries to make it impossible for the people of one State to 
prohibit the people of any other State from entering it with their 
"property," so called, and making it a Slave State. In other 
words, it was a charge implying a design to make the institution 
of slavery national. And now I ask your attention to what Judge 
Douglas has himself done here. I know he made that part of 
the speech as a reason why he had refused to vote for a certain 
man for public printer ; but when we get at it, the charge itself 
is the very one I made against him, that he thinks I am so cor- 
rupt for uttering. Now, whom does he make that charge against? 



124 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Does he make it against that newspaper editor merely? No ; he 
says it is identical in spirit with the Lecompton Constitution, and 
so the framers of that Constitution are brought in with the editor 
of the newspaper in that "fatal blow being struck." He did not 
call it a "conspiracy." In his language, it is a "fatal blow being 
struck." And if the words carry the meaning better when 
changed from a "conspiracy" into a "fatal blow being struck," I 
will change my expression, and call it "fatal blow being struck." 
We see the charge made not merely against the editor of the 
"Union," but all the framers of the Lecompton Constitution ; and 
not only so, but the article was an authoritative article. By 
whose authority? Is there any question but he means it was by 
the authority of the President and his Cabinet, — the Aministra- 
tion? 

Is there any sort of question but he means to make that 
charge? Then there are the editors of the "Union," the framers 
of the Lecompton Constitution, the President of the United States 
and his Cabinet, and all the supporters of the Lecompton Consti- 
tution, in Congress and out of Congress, who are all involved in 
this "fatal blow being struck." I commend to Judge Douglas's 
consideration the question of how corrupt a fnan's heart must be 
to make such a charge! 

Now, my friends, I have but one branch of the subject, in 
the little time I have left, to which to call your attention ; and as 
I shall come to a close at the end of that branch, it is probable 
that I shall not occupy quite all the time allotted to me. 
Although on these questions I would like to talk twice as long 
as I have, I could not enter upon another head and discuss it 
properly without running over my time. I ask the attention 
of the people here assembled and elsewhere to the course that 
Judge Douglas is pursuing every day as bearing upon this ques- 
tion of making slavery national. Not going back to the records, 
but taking the speeches he makes, the speeches he made yester- 
day and day before, and makes constantly all over the country, — 
I ask your attention to them. In the first place, what is necessary 
to make the institution national? Not war. There is no danger 
that the people of Kentucky will shoulder their muskets, and, with 
a young nigger stuck on every bayonet, march into Illinois and 
force them upon us. There is no danger of our going over there 
and making war upon them. Then what is necessary for the 
nationalization of slavery? It is simply the next Dred Scott 
decision. It is merely for the Supreme Court to decide that no 
State under the Constitution can exclude it, just as they have 
already decided that under the Constitution neither Congress nor 
the Territorial Legislature can do it. When that is decided and 
acquiesced in, the whole thing is done. This being true, and 
this being the way, as I think, that slavery is to be made national, 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 125 

let US consider what Judge Douglas is doing every day to that 
end. In the first place, let us see what influence he is exerting 
on public sentiment. In this and like communities, public senti- 
ment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail ; 
without it, nothing can succeed. Consequently, he who moulds 
public sentiment, goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pro- 
nounces decisions. He makes statutes and decisions possible or 
impossible to be executed. This must be borne in mind, as also 
the additional fact that Judge Douglas is a man of vast influence, 
so great that it is enough for many men to profess to believe any- 
thing, when they once find out Judge Douglas professes to 
believe it. Consider also the attitude he occupies at the head of 
a large party, — a party which he claims has a majority of all 
the voters in the country. This man sticks to a decision which 
forbids the people of a Territory from excluding slavery, and 
he does so, not because he says it is right in itself, — he does not 
give any opinion on that, — but because it has been decided by the 
court; and being decided by the court, he is, and you are, bound 
to take it in your political action as law^ not that he judges at all 
of its merits, but because a decision of the court is to him a " Thus 
saith the Lord." He places it on that ground alone ; and you 
will bear in mind that thus committing himself unreservedly to 
this decision commits him to the next one just as firmly as to this. 
He did not commit himself on account of the merit or demerit of 
the decision, but it is a "Thus saith the Lord." The next de- 
cision, as much as this, will be a " Thus saith the Lord." There 
is nothing that can divert or turn him away from this decision. 
It is nothing that I point out to him that his great prototype, 
General Jackson, did not believe in the binding force of decisions. 
It is nothing to him that Jefferson did not so believe. I have 
said that I have often heard him approve of Jackson's course in 
disregarding the decision of the Supreme Court pronouncing a 
National Bank constitutional. He says, I did not hear him say 
so. He denies the accuracy of my recollection. I say he ought 
to know better than I, but I will make no question about this 
thing, though it still seems to me that I heard him say it twenty 
times. I will tell him, though, that he now claims to stand on the 
Cincinnati platform, which affirms that Congress cannot charter 
a National Bank, in the teeth of that old standing decision that 
Congress can charter a bank. And I remind him of another 
piece of history on the question of respect for judicial decisions, 
and it is a piece of Illinois history belonging to a time when the 
large party to which Judge Douglas belonged were displeased 
with a decision of the Supreme Court of Illinois, because they 
had decided that a Governor could not remove a Secretary of 
State. You will find the whole story in Ford's History of 
Illinois, and I know that Judge Douglas will not deny that he 



126 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

was then in favor of overslaughing that decision by the mode of 
adding five new judges, so as to vote down the four old ones. 
Not only so, but it ended in the 'Judge's sitting down on that very 
bench as one of the Jive new judges to break down the four old 
ones. It was in this way precisely that he got his title of judge. 
Now, when the judge tells me that men appointed conditionally 
to sit as members of a court will have to be catechised before- 
hand upon some subject, I say, " You know. Judge ; you have tried 
it." When he says a court of this kind will lose the confidence 
of all men, will be prostituted and disgraced by such a proceed- 
ing, I say, " You know best, Judge ; you have been through the 
mill." But I cannot shake Judge Douglas's teeth loose from the 
Dred Scott decision. Like some obstinate animal (I mean no 
disrespect) that will hang on when he has once got his teeth 
fixed, you may cut ofi^" a leg, or you may tear away an arm, still 
he will not relax his hold. And so I may point out to the Judge, 
and say that he is bespattered all over, from the beginning of 
his political life to the present time, with attacks upon judicial 
decisions ; I may cut oft' limb after limb of his public record, and 
strive to wrench him from a single dictum of the court, — yet I 
cannot divert him from it. He hangs, to the last, to the Dred 
Scott decision. These things show there is a purpose strong as 
death and eternity for which he adheres to this decision, and for 
which he will adhere to all other decisions of the same court. 
A Hibernian : " Give us something besides Drid Scott." 
Mr. Lincoln : Yes ; no doubt you want to hear something 
that don't hurt. Now, having spoken of the Dred Scott decision, 
one more word, and I am done. Henry Clay, my beau-ideal of 
a statesman, the man for whom I fought all my humble life, — 
Henry Clay once said of a class of men who would repress all 
tendencies to liberty and ultimate emancipation that they must, 
if they would do this, go back to the era of our Independence,, 
and muzzle the cannon which thunders its annual joyous return ; 
they must blow out the moral lights around us ; they must pene- 
trate the human soul, and eradicate there the love of liberty ; and 
then, and not till then, could they perpetuate slaver}'- in this 
countr}^ ! To my thinking, Judge Douglas is, by his example 
and vast influence, doing that very thing in this community, when 
he says that the negro has nothing in the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. Henry Clay plainly understood the contrary. Judge 
Douglas is going back to the era of our Revolution, and, to the 
extent of his ability, muzzling the cannon which thunders its 
annual joyous return. When he invites any people, willing to 
have slavery, to establish it, he is blowing out the moral lights 
around us. When he says he " cares not whether slaver}'- is 
voted down or up," — that it is a sacred right of self-government, — 
he is, in my judgment, penetrating the human soul and eradi- 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 127 

eating the light of reason and the love of liberty in this Amer- 
ican people. And now I will only say that when, by all these 
means and appliances, Judge Douglas shall succeed in bringing 
public sentiment to an exact accordance with his own views ; 
when these vast assemblages shall echo back all these sentiments ; 
when they shall come to repeat his views and to avow his prin- 
ciples, and to say all that he says on these mighty questions, — 
then it needs only the formality of the second Dred Scott 
decision, which he indorses in advance, to make slavery alike 
lawful in all the States, old as well as new. North as well as 
South. 

My friends, that ends the chapter. The Judge can take his 
half-hour. 

MR. DOUGLAS'S REPLY. 

Fellow-Citizens : I will now occupy the half-hour allotted 
to me in replying to Mr. Lincoln. The first point to which I will 
call your attention is, as to what I said about the organization of 
the Republican party in 1854, and the platform that was formed 
on the oth of October of that year, and I will then put the 
question to Mr. Lincoln, whether or not he approves of each 
article in that platform, and ask for a specific answer. I did not 
charge him with being a member of the committee which 
reported that platform. I charged that that platform was the 
platform of the Republican party adopted by them. The fact 
that it was the platform of the Republican party is not denied ; 
but Mr. Lincoln now says that although his name was on the 
committee which reported it, that he does not think he was 
there, but thinks he was in Tazewell, holding court. Now, I 
want to remind Mr. Lincoln that he was at Springfield when 
that Convention was held and those resolutions adopted. 

The point I am going to remind Mr. Lincoln of is this : that 
after I had made my speech in 1854, during the fair, he gave me 
notice that he was going to reply to me the next day. I 
was sick at the time, but I stayed over in Springfield to hear 
his reply and to reply to him. On that day this very Convention, 
the resolutions adopted by which I have read, was to meet in the 
Senate chamber. He spoke in the hall of the House ; and when 
he got through his speech — my recollection is distinct, and I 
shall never forget it — Mr. Codding walked in as I took the 
stand to reply, and gave notice that the Republican State 
Convention would meet instantly in the Senate chamber, and 
called upon the Republicans to retire there and go into this very 
Convention, instead of remaining and listening to me. 

In the first place, Mr. Lincoln was selected by the very 
men who made the Republican organization, on that day, to 
reply to me. He spoke for them and for that party, and he was 



128 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the leader of the party ; and on the very day he made his speech 
in reply to me, preaching up this same doctrine of negro equality 
under the Declaration of Independence, this Republican party 
met in Convention. Another evidence that he was acting in 
concert with them is to be found in the fact that that Convention 
waited an hour after its time of meeting to hear Lincoln's 
speech, and Codding, one of their leading men, marched in the 
moment Lincoln got through, and gave notice that they did not 
want to hear me, and would proceed with the business of the 
Convention. Still another fact. I have here a newspaper printed 
at Springfield, Mr. Lincoln's own town, in October, 1854, a few 
days afterward, publishing these resolutions, charging Mr. 
Lincoln with entertaining these sentiments, and trying to prove 
that they were also the sentiments of Mr. Yates, their candidate 
for Congress. This has been published on Mr. Lincoln over 
and over again, and never before has he denied it. 

But, my friends, this denial of his that he did not act on the 
committee, is a miserable quibble to avoid the main issue, which 
is, that this Republican platform declares in favor of the 
unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave law. Has Lincoln 
answered whether he indorsed that or not? I called his atten- 
tion to it when I first addressed you, and asked him for an 
answer, and I then predicted that he would not answer. How 
does he answer? Why, that he was not on the committee that 
wrote the resolutions. I then repeated the next proposition 
contained in the resolutions, which was to restrict slavery in 
those States in which it exists, and asked him whether he 
indorsed it. Does he answer yes, or no? He says in reply, "I 
was not on the committee at the time ; I was up in Tazewell." 
The next question I put to him was, whether he was in favor of 
prohibiting the admission of any more Slave States into the 
Union. I put the question to him distinctly, whether, if the 
people of the Territory, when they had sufficient population to 
make a State, should form their Constitution recognizing slavery, 
he would vote for or against its admission. He is a candidate 
for the United States Senate, and it is possible, if he should be 
elected, that he would have to vote directly on that question. I 
asked him to answer me and you, whether he would vote to 
admit a State into the Union, with slavery or without it, as its 
own people might choose. He did not answer that question. He 
dodges that question also, under the cover that he was not on 
the committee at the time, that he was not present when the 
platform was made. I want to know if he should happen to be 
in the Senate when a State applied for admission, with a Consti- 
tution acceptable to her own people, he would vote to admit that 
State, if slavery was one of its institutions. He avoids the 
answer. 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 129 

It is true he gives the Abolitionists to understand by a hint 
that he would not vote to admit such a State. And why? He 
goes on to say that the man who would talk about giving each 
State the right to have slavery or not, as it pleased, was akin to 
the man who would muzzle the guns which thundered forth the 
annual joyous return of the day of our Independence. He says 
that that kind of talk is casting a blight on the glory of this 
country. What is the meaning of that? That he is not in 
favor of each State to have the right of doing as it pleases an 
the slavery question ? I will put the question to him again and 
again, and I intend to force it out of him. 

Then, again, this platform, which was made at Springfield 
by his own party when he was its acknowledged head, provides 
that Republicans will insist on the abolition of slavery in the 
District of Columbia, and I asked Lincoln specifically whether 
he agreed with them in that? [" Did you get an answer?"] He 
is afraid to answer it. He knows I would trot him down to 
Egypt. I intend to make him answer there, or I will show the 
people of Illinois that he does not intend to answer these 
questions. The Convention to which I have been alluding goes 
a little further, and pledges itself to exclude slavery from all the 
Territories over which the General Government has exclusive 
jurisdiction north of 36 deg. 30 min., as well as south. Now, I 
want to know whether he approves that provision. I want him 
to answer, and when he does, I want to know his opinion on 
another point, which is, whether he will redeem the pledge of 
this platform, and resist the acquirement of any more territory 
unless slavery therein shall be forever prohibited. I want him 
to answer this last question. Each of the questions I have put to 
him are practical questions, — questions based upon the funda- 
mental principles of the Black Republican party ; and I want 
to know whether he is the first, last, and only choice of a party 
with whom he does not agree in principle. He does not deny 
but that that principle was unanimously adopted by the Republi- 
can party ; he does not deny that the whole Republican party is 
pledged to it ; he does not deny that a man who is not faithful 
to it is faithless to the Republican party ; and now I want to 
know whether that party is unanimously in favor of a man who 
does not adopt that creed and agree with them in their 
principles ; I want to know whether the man who does not agree 
with them, and who is afraid to avow his differences, and who 
dodges the issue, is the first, last, and only choice of the 
Republican party. 

A voice : How about the conspiracy? 

Mr. Douglas ; Never mind, I will come to that soon enough. 
But the platform which I have read to you not only lays down 
these principles, but it adds : — 

18 



130 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

*■'■ Resolved, That in furtherance of these principles, we will use 
such constitutional and lawful means as shall seem best adapted to 
their accomplishment, and that we will support no man for office, 
under the General or State Government, who is not positively and 
fully committed to the support of these principles, and whose 
personal character and conduct is not a guarantee that he is reliable, 
and who shall not have abjured old party allegiance and ties." 

The Black Republican party stands pledged that they will 
never support Lincoln until he has pledged himself to that plat- 
form ; but he cannot devise his answer, he has not made up his 
mind whether he will or not. He talked about everything else 
he could think of to occupy his hour and a half, and when he 
could not think of anything more to say, without an excuse for 
refusing to answer these questions, he sat down long before his 
time was out. 

In relation to Mr. Lincoln's charge of conspiracy against 
me, I have a word to say. In his speech to-day he quotes a 
playful part of his speech at Springfield, about Stephen, and 
James, and Franklin, and Roger, and says that I did not take 
exception to it. I did not answer it, and he repeats it again. I did 
not take exception to this figure of his. He has a right to be as 
playful as he pleases in throwing his arguments together, and I 
will not object ; but I did take objection to his second Springfield 
speech, in which he stated that he intended his first speech as a 
charge of corruption or conspiracy against the Supreme Court of 
the United States, President Pierce, President Buchanan, and 
myself. That gave the offensive character to the charge. He 
then said that when he made it he did not know whether it was 
true or not ; but inasmuch as Judge Douglas had not denied it, 
although he had replied to the other parts of his speech three 
times, he repeated it as a charge of conspiracy against me, thus 
charging me with moral turpitude. When he put it in that form, 
I did say that, inasmuch as he repeated the charge simply because 
I had not denied it, I would deprive him of the opportunity of 
ever repeating it again, by declaring that it was, in all its bearings, 
an infamous lie. He says he will repeat it until I answer his 
folly and nonsense about Stephen, and Franklin, and Roger, and 
Bob, and James. 

He studied that out, prepared that one sentence with the 
greatest care, committed it to memory, and put it in his first 
Springfield speech ; and now he carries that speech around, and 
reads that]sentence to show how pretty it is. His vanity is wounded 
because I will not go into that beautiful figure of his about 
the building of a house. All I have to say is, that I am not green 
enough to let him make a charge which he acknowledges he 
does not know to be true, and then take up my time in answering 
it, when I know it to be false, and nobody else knows it to be 
true. 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 131 

I have not brought a charge of moral turpitude against him. 
When he, or any other man, brings one against me, instead of 
disproving it, I will say that it is a lie, and let him prove it if 
he can. 

I have lived twenty-five years in Illinois, I have served you 
with all the fidelity and ability which I possess, and Mr. Lincoln 
is at liberty to attack my public action, my votes, and my con- 
duct ; but when he dares to attack my moral integrity by a charge 
of conspiracy between myself. Chief Justice Taney and the 
Supreme Court, and two Presidents of the United States, I will 
repel it. 

Mr. Lincoln has not character enough for integrity and truth, 
merely on his own i-pse dixit, to arraign President Buchanan, 
President Pierce, and nine Judges of the Supreme Court, not one 
of whom would be complimented by being put on an equality with 
him. There is an unpardonable presumption in a man putting 
himself up before thousands of people, and pretending that his 
ipse dixit, without proof, without fact, and without truth, is 
enough to bring down and destroy the purest and best of living 
men. 

Fellow-citizens, my time is fast expiring; I must pass on. 
Mr. Lincoln wants to know why I voted against Mr. Chase's 
amendment to the Nebraska bill. I will tell him. In the first 
place, the bill already conferred all the power which Congress 
had, by giving the people the whole power over the subject. 
Chase offered a proviso that they might abolish slavery, which 
by implication would convey the idea that they could prohibit 
by not introducing that institution. General Cass asked him to 
modify his amendment so as to provide that the people might 
either prohibit or introduce slavery, and thus make it fair and 
equal. Chase refused to so modify his proviso, and then General 
Cass and all the rest of us voted it down. Those facts appear 
on the journals and debates of Congress, where Mr. Lincoln 
found the charge ; and if he had told the whole truth, there would 
have been no necessity for me to occupy your time in explaining 
the matter. 

Mr. Lincoln wants to know why the word " State," as well 
as "Territory," was put into the Nebraska bill. I will tell him. 
It was put there to meet just such false arguments as he has been 
adducing. That first, not only the people of the Territories 
should do as they pleased, but that when they come to be ad- 
mitted as States, they should come into the Union with or without 
slavery, as the people determined. I meant to knock in the head 
this Abolition doctrine of Mr. Lincoln's, that there shall be no 
more Slave States, even if the people want them. And it does 
not do for him to say, or for any other Black Republican to say, 
that there is nobody in favor of the doctrine of no more Slave 



132 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

States, and that nobody wants to interfere with the right of the 
people to do as they please. What was the origin of the Mis- 
souri difficulty and the Missouri Compromise? The people of 
Missouri formed a Constitution as a Slave State, and asked 
admission into the Union ; but the Free-soil party of the North, 
being in a majority, refused to acimit her because she had slavery 
as one of her institutions. Hence this first slavery agitation arose 
upon a State, and not upon a Territory ; and yet Mr. Lincoln 
does not know why the word "State" was placed in the Kansas- 
Nebraska bill. The whole Abolition agitation arose on that 
doctrine of prohibiting a State from coming in with slavery or 
not, as it pleased, and that same doctrine is here in this Repub- 
lican platform of 1854 ; it has never been repealed ; and every 
Black Republican stands pledged by that platform never to vote 
for any man who is not in favor of it. Yet Mr. Lincoln does not 
know that there is a man in the world who is in favor of pre- 
venting a State from coming in as it pleases, notwithstanding. 
The Springfield platform says that they, the Republican party, 
will not allow a State to come in under such circumstances. He 
is an ignorant man. 

Now you see that upon these very points I am as far from 
bringing Mr. Lincoln up to the line as I ever was before. He 
does not want to avow his principles. I do want to avow 
mine, as clear as sunlight in midday. Democracy is founded 
upon the eternal principle of right. The plainer these principles 
are avowed before the people, the stronger will be the support 
which they will receive. I only wish I had the power to make 
them so clear that they would shine in the heavens for every man, 
woman, and child to read. The first of those principles that I 
would proclaim would be in opposition to Mr. Lincoln's doctrine 
of uniformity between the different States, and I would declare 
instead the sovereign right of each State to decide the slavery 
question as well as all other domestic questions for themselves, 
without interference from any other State or power whatsoever. 

When that principle is recognized, you will have peace and 
harmony and fraternal feeling between all the States of this 
Union ; until you do recognize that doctrine, there will be sec- 
tional warfare agitating and distracting the country. What does 
Mr. Lincoln propose? He says that the Union cannot exist 
divided into Free and Slave States. If it cannot endure thus 
divided, then he must strive to make them all free or all slave, 
which will inevitably bring about a dissolution of the Union. 

Gentlemen, I am told that my time is out, and I am obliged 
to stop. 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 133 

SECOND JOINT DEBATE, AT FREEPORT, 

August 27, 1858. 
MR. LINCOLN'S SPEECH. 

Ladies and Gentlemen : On Saturday last, Judge Douglas 
and myself first met in public discussion. He spoke one hour, I 
an hour and a half, and he replied for half an hour. The order 
is now reversed. I am to speak an hour, he an hour and a half, 
and then I am to reply for half an hour. I propose to devote my- 
self during the first hour to the scope of what was brought within 
the range of his half-hour speech at Ottawa. Of course there 
was brought within the scope in that half-hour's speech some- 
thing of his own opening speech. In the course of that opening 
argument Judge Douglas proposed to me seven distinct interrog- 
atories. In my speech of an hour and a half, I attended to some 
other parts of his speech, and incidentally, as I thought, answered 
one of the interrogatories then. I then distinctly intimated to 
him that I would answer the rest of his interrogatories on con- 
dition only that he should agree to answer as many for me. He 
made no intimation at the time of the proposition, nor did he in 
his reply allude at all to that suggestion of mine. I do him no in- 
justice in saying that he occupied at least half of his reply in 
dealing with me as though I had refused to answer his inter- 
rogatories. I now propose that I will answer any of the interrog- 
atories, upon condition that he will answer questions from me 
not exceeding the same number. I give him an opportunity to 
respond. The Judge remains silent. I now say that I will 
answer his interrogatories, whether he answers mine or not; 
and that after I have done so, I shall propound mine to him. 

I have supposed myself, since the organization of the Repub- 
lican party at Bloomington, in May, 1856, bound as a party man 
by the platforms of the party, then and since. If in any interrog- 
atories which I shall answer I go beyond the scope of what is 
within these platforms, it will be perceived that no one is respon- 
sible but myself. 

Having said thus much, I will take up the Judge's interrog- 
atories as I find them printed in the Chicago "Times," and 
answer them seriatim. In order that there may be no mistake 
about it, I have copied the interrogatories in writing, and also 
my answers to them. The first one of these interrogatories is in 
these words : — 

Question 1. — "I desire to know whether Lincoln to-day 
stands, as he did in 1854, in favor of the unconditional repeal of 
, the Fugitive Slave law?" 



134 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Answer. — I do not now, nor ever did, stand in favor of the 
unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave law. 

c^. 2. " I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged 
to-day, as he did in 1854, against the admission of any more 
Slave States into the Union, even if the people want them? " 

A. I do not now, or ever did, stand pledged against the 
admission of any more Slave States into the Union. 

J^. 3. " I want to know whether he stands pledged against 
the admission of a new State into the Union with such a Consti- 
tution as the people of that State may see fit to make? " 

A. I do not stand pledged against the admission of a new 
State into the Union, with such a Constitution as the people of 
that State may see fit to make. 

J^. 4. " I want to know whether he stands to-day pledged 
to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia? " 

A. I do not stand to-day pledged to the abolition of slavery 
in the District of Columbia. 

^ 5. "I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged 
to the prohibition of the slave-trade between the diflferent States ? " 

A. I do not stand pledged to the prohibition of the slave- 
trade between the different States. 

j^. 6. " I desire to know whether he stands pledged to 
prohibit slavery in all the Territories of the United States, north 
as well as south of the Missouri Compromise line? " 

A. I am impliedly, if not expressly, pledged to a belief in 
the right and duty of Congress to prohibit slavery in all the 
United States Territories. 

o^. 7. *'I desire him to answer whether he is opposed to 
the acquisition of any new territory unless slavery is first 
prohibited therein?" 

A. I am not generally opposed to honest acquisition of ter- 
ritory ; and, in any given case, I would or would not oppose such 
acquisition, accordingly as I might think such acquisition would 
or would not aggravate the slavery question among ourselves. 

Now, my frienHs, it will be perceived, upon an examination 
of these questions and answers, that so far I have only answered 
that I was not ^pledged to this, that, or the other. The Judge has 
not framed his interrogatories to ask me anything more than this, 
and I have answered in strict accordance with the interrogatories, 
and have answered truly, that I am not pledged at all upon any 
of the points to which I have answered. But I am not disposed 
to hang upon the exact form of his interrogatory. I am rather dis- 
posed to take up at least some of these questions, and state what I 
reall}'^ think upon them. 

As to the first one, in regard to the Fugitive Slave law, I 
have never hesitated to say, and I do not now hesitate to say, 
that I think, under the Constitution of the United States, the 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 135 

people of the Southern States are entitled to a Congressional 
Fugitive Slave law. Having said that, I have had nothing to say 
in regard to the existing Fugitive Slave law, further than that I 
think it should have been framed so as to be free from some of 
the objections that pertain to it, without lessening its efficiency. 
And inasmuch as we are not now in an agitation in regard to an 
alteration or modification of that law, I would not be the man to 
introduce it as a new subject of agitation upon the general 
question of slavery. 

In regard to the other question, of whether I am pledged to 
to the admission of any more Slave States into the Union, I state to 
you very frankly that I would be exceedingly sorry ever to be put 
in a position of having to pass upon that question. I should be 
exceedingly glad to know that there would never be another 
Slave State admitted into the Union ; but I must add that if 
slavery shall be kept out of the Territories during the territorial 
existence of any one given Territory, and then the people shall, 
having a fair chance and a clear field, when they come to adopt 
the constitution, do such an extraordinary thing as to adopt a 
slave constitution, uninfluenced by the actual presence of the 
institution among them, I see no alternative, if we own the 
country, but to admit them into the Union. 

The third interrogatory is answered by the answer to the 
second, it being, as I conceive, the same as the second. 

The fourth one is in regard to the abolition of slavery in the 
District of Columbia. In relation to that, I have my mind very 
distinctly made up. I should be exceedingly glad to see slavery 
abolished in the District of Columbia. I believe that Congress 
possesses the constitutional power to abolish it. Yet as a 
member of Congress, I should not, with my present views, be in 
favor of endea-voring to abolish slavery in the District of Colum- 
bia, unless it would be upon these conditions : First, that the 
abolition should be gradual ; second, that it should be on a vote 
of the majority of qualified voters in the District ; and third, 
that compensation should be made to unwilling owners. With 
these three conditions, I confess I would be exceedingly glad to 
see Congress abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and, 
in the language of Henry Clay, " sweep from our capital that 
foul blot upon our nation." 

In regard to the fifth interrogatory, I must say here, that as 
to the question of the abolition of the slave-trade between the 
different States, I can truly answer, as I have, that I am fledged 
to nothing about it. It is a subject to which I have not given 
that mature consideration that would make me feel authorized 
to state a position so as to hold myself entirely bound by it. In 
other words, that question has never been prominently enough 
before me to induce me to investigate whether we really ha\'e 



136 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the constitutional power to do it. I could investigate it if I had 
sufficient time to bring m^^self to a conclusion upon that subject ; 
but I have not done so, and I say so frankly to you here, and to 
Judge Douglas. I must say, however, that if I should be of 
opinion that Congress does possess the constitutional power 
to abolish the slave-trade among the different States, I should 
still not be in favor of the exercise of that power, unless upon some 
conservative principle as I conceive it, akin to what I have said in 
relation to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. 

My answer as to whether I desire that slavery should be 
prohibited in all the Territories of the United States, is full and 
explicit within itself, and cannot be made clearer by any com- 
ments of mine. So I suppose in regard to the question whether 
I am opposed to the acquisition of any more territory unless 
slavery is first prohibited therein, my answer is such that I could 
add nothing by way of illustration, or making myself better 
understood, than the answer which I have placed in writing. 

Now in all this the Judge has me, and he has me on the 
record. I suppose he had flattered himself that I was really enter- 
taining one set of opinions for one place, and another set for 
another place ; that I was afraid to say at one place what I 
uttered at another. What I am saying here I suppose I say to a 
vast audience as strongly tending to Abolitionism as any audience 
in the State of Illinois, and I believe I am saying that which, 
if it would be offensive to any persons and render them enemies 
to myself, would be offensive to persons in this 'audience. 

I now proceed to propound to the Judge the interrogatories,, 
so far as I have framed them. I will bring forward a new 
installment when I get them ready. I will bring them forward 
now, only reaching to number four. 

The first one is : — 

^lestion 1. — If the people of Kansas shall, by means entirely 
unobjectionable in all other respects, adopt a State constitution, 
and ask admission into the Union under it, before they have the 
requisite number of inhabitants according to the English bill, — 
some ninety-three thousand, — will you vote to admit them? 

J^. 2. Can the people of a United States Territory, in 
any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United 
States, exclude slaver^'- from its limits prior to the formation of a 
State constitution? 

.^. 3. If the Supreme Court of the United States shall 
decide that States cannot exclude slavery from their limits, are 
you in favor of acquiescing in, adopting, and following such 
decision as a rule of political action? 

^. 4. Are you in favor of acquiring additional territory,, 
in disregard of how such acquisition may aftect the nation on 
the slavery question? 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 137 

As introductory to these interrogatories which Judge 
Douglas propounded to me at Ottawa, he read a set of resolu- 
tions which he said Judge Trumbull and myself had participated 
in adopting, in the first Republican State Convention, held at 
Springfield in October, 1854. He insisted that I and Judge 
Trumbull, and perhaps the entire Republican party, were 
responsible for the doctrines contained in the set of resolutions 
which he read, and I understand that it was from that set of 
resolutions that he deduced the interrogatories which he 
propounded to me, using these resolutions as a sort of authority 
for propounding those questions to me. Now, I say here to-day 
that I do not answer his interrogatories because of their springing 
at all from that set resolutions which he read. I answered them 
because Judge Douglas tbought fit to ask them. I do not now, 
nor never did, recognize any responsibility upon myself in that set 
of resolutions. When I replied to him on that occasion, I 
assured him that I never had anything to do with them. I 
repeat here to-day that I never in any possible form had anything 
to do with that set of resolutions. It turns out, I believe, that 
those resolutions were never passed in any convention held in 
Springfield. It turns out that they were never passed at any 
convention or any public meeting that I had any part in. I 
believe it turns out, in addition to all this, that there was not, in 
the fall of 1854, any convention holding a session in Springfield, 
calling itself a Republican State Convention ; yet it is true there 
was a convention, or assemblage of men calling themselves a 
convention, at Springfield, that did pass some resolutions. But 
so little did I really know of the proceedings of that convention, 
or what set of resolutions they had passed, though having a 
general knowledge that there had been such an assemblage of men 
there, that when Judge Douglas read the resolutions, I really did 
not know but they had been the resolutions passed then and there. 
I did not question that they were the resolutions adopted. For I 
could not bring myself to suppose that Judge Douglas could say 
what he did upon this subject without knowing that it was true. 
I contented myself, on that occasion, with denying, as I truly 
could, all connection with them, not denying or affirming whether 
they were passed at Springfield. Now, it turns out that he had 
got hold of some resolutions passed at some convention or public 
meeting in Kane County. I wish to say here, that I don't con- 
ceive that in any fair and just mind this discovery relieves me at 
all. r had just as much to do with the convention in Kane 
Count}'^ as that at Springfield. I am just as much responsible 
for the resolutions at Kane County as those at Springfield, — the 
amount of the responsibility being exactly nothing in either case ; 
no more than there would be in regard to a set of resolutions 
passed in the moon. 

19 



138 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

I allude to this extraordinary matter in this canvass for some 
further purpose than anything yet advanced. Judge Douglas did 
not make his statement upon that occasion as matters that he be- 
lieved to be true, but he stated them roundly as bemgtrue, in such 
form as to pledge his veracity for their truth. When the whole 
matter turns out as it does, and when we consider who Judge 
Douglas is, — that he is a distinguished Senator of the United 
States ; that he has served nearly twelve years as such ; that his 
character is not at all limited as an ordinary Senator of the United 
States, but that his name has become of world-wide renown, — 
it is most extraordinary that he should so far forget all the sug- 
gestions of justice to an adversary, or of prudence to himself, as 
to venture upon the assertion of that which the slightest investi- 
gation would have shown him to be Wholly false. I can only 
account for his having done so upon the supposition that that evil 
genius which has attended him through his life, giving to him an 
apparent astonishing prosperity, such as to lead very many good 
men to doubt there being any advantage in virtvie over vice, — I 
say I can only account for it on the supposition that that evil 
genius has at last made up its mind to forsake him. 

And I may add that another extraordinary feature of the 
Judge's conduct in this canvass — made more extraordinary by 
this incident — is, that he is in the habit, in almost all the speeches 
he makes, of charging falsehood upon his adversaries, myself and 
others. I now ask whether he is able to find in an^'^thing that 
Judge Trumbull, for instance, has said, or in anything that I have 
said, a justification at all compared with what we have, in this 
instance, for that sort of vulgarity. 

I have been in the habit of charging as a matter of belief on 
my part that, in the introduction of the Nebraska bill into Con- 
gress, there was a conspiracy to make slavery perpetual and 
national. I have arranged from time to time the evidence which 
establishes and proves the truth of this charge. I recurred to 
this charge at Ottawa. I shall not now have time to dwell upon 
it at very great length ; but inasmuch as Judge Douglas, in his 
reply of half an hour, made some points upon me in relation to it, 
I propose noticing a few of them. 

The Judge insists that, in the first speech I made, in which I 
very distinctly made that charge, he thought for a good while I 
was in fun ! that I was playful ; that I was not sincere about it ; 
and that he only grew angry and somewhat excited when he found 
that I insisted upon it as a matter of earnestness. He says he 
characterized it as a falsehood so far as I implicated his moral 
character in that transaction. Well, I did not know, till he pre- 
sented that view, that I had implicated his moral character. He 
is very much in the habit, when he argues me up into a position 
I never thought of occupying, of very cosily saying he has no 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 139 

doubt Lincoln is "conscientious" in saying so. He should re- 
member that I did not know but what he was altogether 
"conscientious" in that matter. I can conceive it possible for 
men to conspire to do a good thing, and I really find nothing in 
Judge Douglas's course or arguments that is contrary to or in- 
consistent with hisbelief of a conspiracy to nationalize and spread 
slavery as being a good and blessed thing ; and so I hope he will 
understand that I do not at all question but that in all this matter 
he is entirely "conscientious." 

But to draw your attention to one of the points I made in 
this case, beginning at the beginning. When the Nebraska bill 
was introduced, or a short time afterward, by an amendment, I 
believe, it was provided that it must be considered "the true 
intent and meaning of this Act not to legislate slavery into any 
State or Territory, or to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the 
people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their own 
domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Con- 
stitution of the United States." I have called his attention to 
the fact that when he and some others began arguing that they 
were giving an increased degree of liberty to the people in the 
Territories over and above what they formerly had on the ques- 
tion of slavery, a question was raised whether the law was 
enacted to give such unconditional liberty to the people ; and to 
test the sincerity of this mode of argument, Mr. Chase, of Ohio, 
introduced an amendment, in which he made the law — if the 
amendment were adopted — expressly declare that the people of 
the Territory should have the power to exclude slavery if they 
saw fit. I have asked attention also to the fact that Judge Doug- 
las and those who acted with him voted that amendment down, 
notwithstanding it expressed exactly the thing they said was the 
true intent and meaning of the law. I have called attention to 
the fact that in subsequent times a decision of the Supreme Court 
has been made, in which it has been declared that a Territorial 
Legislature has no constitutional right to exclude slavery. And 
I have argued and said that for men who did intend that the 
people of the Territory should have the right to exclude slavery 
absolutely and unconditionally, the voting down of Chase's 
amendment is wholly inexplicable. It is a puzzle, a riddle. But 
I have said, that with men who did look forward to such a decision, 
or who had it in contemplation that such a decision of the 
Supreme Court would or might be made, the voting down of that 
amendment would be perfectly rational and intelligible. It would 
keep Congress from coming in collision with the decision when 
it was made. Anybody can conceive that if there was an inten- 
tion or expectation that such a decision was to follow, it would 
not be a very desirable party attitude to get into for the Supreme 
Court — all or nearly all its members belonging to the same party 



140 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

— to decide one way, when the party in Congress had decided 
the other way. Hence it would be very rational for men ex- 
pecting such a decision to keep the niche in that law clear for it. 
After pointing this out, I tell Judge Douglas that it looks to me 
as though here was the reason why Chase's amendment was 
voted down. I tell him that, as he did it, and knows why he did 
it, if it was done for a reason different from this, he knozvs what 
that reason was, andean tell us xvhat it was. I tell him, also, 
it will be vastly more satisfactory to the countr}-- for him to give 
some other plausible, intelligible reason xvhy it was voted down 
than to stand upon his dignity and call people liars. Well, 
on Saturday he did make his answer ; and what do you 
think it was? He says if I had only taken upon myself 
to tell the whole truth about that amendment of Chase's, 
no explanation would have been necessary on his part — 
or words to that effect. Now, I say here that I am quite 
unconscious of having suppressed anything material to the 
case, and I am very frank to admit if there is any sound 
reason other than that which appeared to me material, it is quite 
fair for him to present it. What reason does he propose? That 
when Chase came forward with his amendment expressly author- 
izing the people to exclude slavery from the limits of every 
Territory, General Cass proposed to Chase, if he (Chase) would 
add to his amendment that the people should have the power to 
introduce or exclude, they would let it go. This is substantially 
all of his reply. And because Chase would not do that, they 
voted his amendment down. Well, it turns out, I believe, upon 
examination, that General Cass took some part in the little njn- 
ning debate upon that amendment, and then ran away a7id did 
not vote on it at all. Is not that the fact? So confident, as I 
think, was General Cass that there was a snake somewhere 
about, he chose to run away from the whole thing. This is an 
inference I draw from the fact that, though he took part in the 
debate, his name does not appear in the ayes and noes. But 
does Judge Douglas's reply amount to a satisfactory answer? 
[Cries of "Yes," "Yes," and "No," "No."] There is some 
little difference of opinion here. But I ask attention to a few 
more views bearing on the question of whether it amounts to a 
satisfactory answer. The men who were determined that that 
amendment should not get into the bill and spoil the place where 
the Dred Scott decision was to come in, sought an excuse to get 
rid of it somewhere. One of these ways — one of these excuses 
— was to ask Chase to add to his proposed amendment a pro- 
vision that the people might introduce slavery if they wanted to. 
They very well knew Chase would do no such thing, that Mr. 
Chase was one of the men differing from them on the broad 
principle of his insisting that freedom was better than slaverj'-, — 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 141 

a man who would not consent to enact a law, penned with his 
own hand, by which he was made to recognize slaver}'^ on the one 
hand, and liberty on the other, d^^ -precisely equal; and when they 
insisted on his doing this, they very well knew they insisted on 
that which he would not for a moment think of doing, and that 
they were only bluffing him. I believe (I have not, since he 
made his answer, had a chance to examine the journals or " Con- 
gressional Globe" and therefore speak from memory) — I believe 
the state of the bill at that time, according to parliamentary 
rules, was such that no member could propose an additional 
amendment to Chase's amendment. I rather think this is the 
truth, — the Judge shakes his head. Very well. I would like to 
know, then, if they wanted Chase' s amendment fixed over, -why 
somebody else could not have offered to do it? If they wanted it 
amended, why did they not offer the amendment? Why did 
they stand there taunting and quibbling at Chase? Why did 
they not fut it in themselves? But to put it on the other ground : 
suppose that there was such an amendment offered, and Chase's 
was an amendment to an amendment ; until one is disposed of 
by parliamentary law, you cannot pile another on. Then all 
these gentlemen had to do was to vote Chase's on, and then, in 
the amended form in which the whole stood, add their own 
amendment to it, if they wanted to put it in that shape. This 
was all they were obliged to do, and the ayes and noes show 
that there were thirty-six who voted it down, against ten who 
voted in favor of it. The thirty-six held entire sway and control. 
They could in some form or other have put that bill in the exact 
shape they wanted. If there was a rule preventing their amend- 
ing it at the time, they could pass that, and then. Chase's amend- 
ment being merged, put it in the shape they wanted. They did 
not choose to do so, but they went into a quibble with Chase to 
get him to add what they knew he would not add, and because 
he would not, they stand upon the flimsy pretext for voting down 
what they argued was the meaning and intent of their own bill. 
They left room thereby for this Dred Scott decision, which goes 
very far to make slavery national throughout the United States. 
I pass one or two points I have, because my time will very 
soon expire ; but I must be allowed to say that Judge Douglas 
recurs again, as he did upon one or two other occasions, to the 
enormity of Lincoln, — an insignificant individual like Lincoln, — 
upon his ipse dixit charging a conspiracy upon a large number 
of members of Congress, the Supreme Court, and two Presi- 
dents, to nationalize slavery. I want to say that, in the first 
place, I have made no charge of this sort upon my ipse dixit. 
I have only arrayed the evidence tending to prove it, and pre- 
sented it to the understanding of others, saying what I think it 
proves, but giving you the means of judging whether it proves it 



142 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

or not. This is precisely what I have done. I have not placed 
it upon my ifse dixit at all. On this occasion, I wish to recall his 
attention to a piece of evidence which I brought forward at 
Ottawa on Saturday, showing that he had made substantially the 
same charge against substantially the same persons, excluding his 
dear self from the category. I ask him to give some attention 
to the evidence which I brought forward that he himself had dis- 
covered a "fatal blow being struck" against the right of the people 
to exclude slavery from their limits, which fatal blow he assumed 
as in evidence in an article in the Washington "Union," pub- 
lished "by authority." I ask by whose authority ? Rediscovers 
a similar or identical provision in the Lecompton Constitution. 
Made by whom? Theframers of that Constitution. Advocated 
by whom? By all the members of the party in the nation, who 
advocated the introduction of Kansas into the Union under the 
Lecompton Constitution. 

I have asked his attention to the evidence that he arrayed to 
prove that such a fatal blow was being struck, and to the facts 
which he brought forward in support of that charge, — being 
identical with the one which he thinks so villainous in me. He 
pointed it, not at a newspaper editor merely, but at the President 
and his Cabinet and the members of Congress advocating the 
Lecompton Constitution and those framing that instrument. I 
must again be permitted to remind him that although my ipse 
dixit may not be as great as his, yet it somewhat reduces the 
force of his calling my attention to the enormity of my making 
a like charge against him. 

Go on, Judge Douglas. 



MR. DOUGLAS'S SPEECH. 

Ladies and Gentlemen : The silence with which you 
have listened to Mr. Lincoln during his hour is creditable to this 
vast audience, composed of men of various political parties. 
Nothing is more honorable to any large mass of people assembled 
for the purpose of a fair discussion than that kind and respectful 
attention that is yielded, not only to your political friends, but 
to those who are opposed to you in politics. 

I am glad that at last I have brought Mr. Lincoln to the con- 
clusion that he had better define his position on certain political 
questions to which I called his attention at Ottawa. He there 
showed no disposition, no inclination, to answer them. I did not 
present idle questions for him to answer, merely for my gratifica- 
tion. I laid the foundation for those interrogatories by showing 
that they constituted the platform of the party whose nominee he 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 143 

is for the Senate. I did not presume that I had the right to cate- 
chise him as I saw proper, unless I showed that his party, or a 
majority of it, stood upon the platform and were in favor of the 
propositions upon which my questions were based. I desired 
simply to know, inasmuch as he had been nominated as the first, 
last, and only choice of his party, whether he concurred in the 
platform which that party had adopted for its government. In a 
few minutes I will proceed to review the answers which he has 
given to these interrogatories ; but, in order to relieve his anxiety, 
I will first respond to these which he has presented to me. 
Mark you, he has not presented interrogatories which have ever 
received the sanction of the party with which I am acting, and 
hence he has no other foundation for them than his own curiosity. 
First, he desires to know if the people of Kansas shall form 
a constitution by means entirely proper and unobjectionable, and 
ask admission into the Union as a State, before they have the 
requisite population for a member of Congress, whether I will 
vote for that admission. Well, now, I regret exceedingly that 
he did not answer that interrogatory himself before he put it to 
me, in order that we might understand, and not be left to infer, on 
which side he is. Mr. Trumbull, during the last session of Con- 
gress, voted from the beginning to the end against the admission 
of Oregon, although a Free State, because she had not the 
requisite population for a member of Congress. Mr. Trumbull 
would not consent, under any circumstances, to let a State, free 
or slave, come into the Union until it had the requisite popula- 
tion. As Mr. Trumbull is in the field, fighting for Mr. Lincoln, 
I would like to have Mr. Lincoln answer his own question, and 
tell me whether he is ^ghting Trumbull on that issue or not. But 
I will answer his question. In reference to Kansas, it is my 
opinion that as she has population enough to constitute a Slave 
State, she has people enough for a Free State. I will not make 
Kansas an exceptional case to the other States of the Union. I 
hold it to be a sound rule, of universal application, to require a 
Territory to contain the requisite population for a member of 
Congress before it is admitted as a State into the Union. I made 
that proposition in the Senate in 1856, and I renewed it during 
the last session, in a bill providing that no Territory of the 
United States should form a constitution and apply for admission 
until it had the requisite population. On another occasion I pro- 
posed that neither Kansas nor any other Territory should be 
admitted until it had the requisite population. Congress did not 
adopt any of my propositions containing this general rule, but 
did make an exception of Kansas. I will stand by that excep- 
tion. Either Kansas must come in as a Free State, with what- 
ever population she may have, or the rule must be applied to all 
the other Territories alike. I therefore answer at once, that, it 



144 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

having been decided that Kansas has people enough for a Slave 
State, I hold that she has enough for a Free State. I hope Mr. 
Lincoln is satisfied with my answer ; and now I would like to get 
his answer to his own interrogatory, — whether or not he will vote 
to admit Kansas before she has the requisite population. I want 
to know whether he will vote to admit Oregon before that Terri- 
tory has the requisite population. Mr. Trumbull will not, and 
the same reason that commits Mr. Trumbull against the admis- 
sion of Oregon, commits him against Kansas, even if she should 
apply for admission as a Free State. If there is any sincerity,, 
any truth, in the argument of Mr. Trumbull in the Senate, against 
the admission of Oregon because she had not 93,420 people, 
although her population was larger than that of Kansas, he 
stands pledged against the admission of both Oregon and Kansas 
until they have 93,420 inhabitants. I would like Mr. Lincoln to 
answer this question. I would like him to take his own medicine. 
If he differs with Mr. Trumbull, let him answer his argument 
against the admission of Oregon, instead of poking questions 
at me. 

The next question propounded to me by Mr. Lincoln is. Can 
the people of a Territory in any lawful way, against the wishes 
of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from their 
limits prior to the formation of a State constitution ? I answer 
emphatically, as Mr. Lincoln has heard me answer a hundred 
times from every stump in Illinois, that in my opinion the people 
of a Territory can, by lawful means, exclude slavery from their 
limits prior to the formation of a State constitution. Mr. Lincoln 
knew that I had answered that question over and over again. 
He heard me argue the Nebraska bill on that principle all over 
the State in 1854, in 1855, and in 1856, and he has no excuse for 
pretending to be in doubt as to my position on that question. It 
matters not what way the Supreme court may hereafter decide 
as to the abstract question whether slavery may or may not go 
into a Territory under the Constitution, the people have the law- 
ful means to introduce it or exclude it as they please, for the 
reason that slavery cannot exist a day or an hour anywhere, un- 
less it is supported by local police regulations. Those police 
regulations can only be established by the local legislature ; and 
if the people are opposed to slavery, they will elect representa- 
tives to that body who will by unfriendly legislation effectually 
prevent the introduction of it into their midst. If, on the con- 
trary, they are for it, their legislation will favor its extension. 
Hence, no matter what the decision of the Supreme Court may 
be on that abstract question, still the right of the people to make 
a Slave Territory or a Free Territory is perfect and complete 
under the Nebraska bill. I hope Mr, Lincoln deems my answer 
satisfactory on that point. 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 145 

In this connection, I will notice the charge which he has in- 
troduced in relation to Mr. Chase's amendment. I thought that 
I had chased that amendment out of Mr. Lincoln's brain at 
Ottawa ; but it seems that it still haunts his imagination, and he 
is not yet satisfied. I had supposed that he would be ashamed to 
press that question further. He is a lawyer, and has been a mem- 
ber of Congress, and has occupied his time and amused you by 
telling you about parliamentary proceedings. He ought to have 
known better than to tr}^ to palm off his miserable impositions 
upon this intelligent audience. The Nebraska bill provided that 
the legislative power and authority of the said Territory should 
extend to all rightful subjects of legislation consistent with the 
organic act and the Constitution of the United States. I did not 
make any exception as to slavery, but gave all the power that it 
was possible for Congress to give, without violating the Consti- 
tution, to the Territorial legislature, with no exception or limita- 
tion on the subject of slavery at all. The language of that bill 
which I have quoted gave the full power and the full authority 
over the subject of slavery, affirmatively and negatively, to intro- 
duce it or exclude it, so far as the Constitution of the United 
States would permit. What more could Mr. Chase give by his 
amendment? Nothing. He offered his amendment for the iden- 
tical purpose for which Mr. Lincoln is using it, — to enable dema- 
gogues in the country to try and deceive the people. 

His amendment was to this effect. It provided that the 
legislature should have the power to exclude slavery ; and General 
Cass suggested, "Why not give the power to introduce as well 
as exclude?" The answer was, They have the power already in 
the bill to do both. Chase was afraid his amendment would be 
adopted if he put the alternative proposition, and so make it fair 
both ways, but would not yield. He offered it for the purpose of 
having it rejected. He offered it, as he has himself avowed over 
and over again, simply to make capital out of it for the stump. 
He expected that it would be capital for small politicians in the 
country, and that they would make an effort to deceive the 
people with it ; and he was not mistaken, for Lincoln is carrjnng 
out the plan admirably. Lincoln knows that the Nebraska bill, 
without Chase's amendment, gave all the power which the Con- 
stitution would permit. Could Congress confer any more? 
Could Congress go beyond the Constitution of the country? We 
gave all a full grant, with no exception in regard to slavery one 
way or the other. We left that question as we left all others, to 
be decided by the people for themselves, just as they please. I 
will not occupy my time on this question. I have argued it 
before, all over Illinois. I have argued it in this beautiful city 
of Freeport ; I have argued it in the North, the South, the East, 
and the West, avowing the same sentiments and the same prin- 

20 



146 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ciples. I have not been afraid to avow my sentiments up here 
for fear I would be trotted down into Egypt. 

The third question which Mr. Lincoln presented is, If the 
Supreme Court of the United States shall decide that a Stale of 
this Union cannot exclude slavery from its own limits, will I 
submit to it? I am amazed that Lincoln should ask such a 
question. [" A schoolboy knows better."] Yes, a schoolboy 
does know better. Mr. Lincoln's object is to cast an imputation 
upon the Supreme Court. He knows that there never was but 
one man in America, claiming any degree of intelligence or 
decency, who ever for a moment pretended such a thing. It is 
true that the Washington "Union," in an article published on 
the 17th of last December, did put forth that doctrine, and I 
denounced the article on the floor of the Senate, in a speech 
which Mr. Lincoln now pretends was against the President. 
The "Union" had claimed that slavery had a right to go into 
the Free States, and that any provision in the Constitution or 
laws of the Free States to the contrary were null and void. I 
denounced it in the Senate, as I said before, and I was the first 
man who did. Lincoln's friends, Trumbull, and Seward, and 
Hale, and Wilson, and the whole Black Republican side of the 
Senate, were silent. They left it to me to denounce it. And 
what was the reply made to me on that occasion? Mr. Toombs, 
of Georgia, got up and undertook to lecture me on the ground 
that I ought not to have deemed the article worthy of notice, and 
ought not to have replied to it ; that there was not one man, 
woman, or child south of the Potomac, in any Slave State, who 
did not repudiate any such pretension. Mr. Lincoln knows 
that that reply was made on the spot, and yet now he asks this 
question. He might as well ask me. Suppose Mr. Lincoln should 
steal a horse, would I sanction it ; and it would be as genteel in 
me to ask him, in the event he stole a horse, what ought to be 
done with him. He casts an imputation upon the Supreme Court 
of the United States, by supposing that they would violate the 
Constitution of the United States. I tell him that such a thing 
is not possible. It would be an act of moral treason that no man 
on the bench could ever descend to. Mr. Lincoln himself would 
never in his partisan feelings so far forget what was right as 
to be guilty of such an act. 

The fourth question of Mr. Lincoln is, Are you in favor of 
acquiring additional territory, in disregard as to how such acqui- 
sition may affect the Union on the Slavery question? This 
question is very ingeniously and cunningly put. 

The Black Republican creed lays it down expressly that 
under no circumstances shall we acquire any more territory, 
unless slavery is first prohibited in the country. I ask Mr. 
Lincoln whether he is in favor of that proposition. Are you 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 147 

[addressing Mr. Lincoln] opposed to the acquisition of any more 
territory, under any circumstances, unless slavery is prohibited 
in it? That he does not like to answer. When I ask him 
whether he stands up to that article in the platform of his party, 
he turns, Yankee-fashion, and without answering it, asks me 
whether I am in favor of acquiring territory without regard to 
how it may affect the Union on the slavery question. I answer 
that whenever it becomes necessary, in our growth and progress, 
to acquire more territory, that I am in favor of it, without refer- 
ence to the question of slavery ; and when we have acquired it, 
I will leave the people free to do as they please, either to make 
it slave or free territory, as they prefer. It is idle to tell me or 
you that we have territory enough. Our fathers supposed that 
we had enough when our territory extended to the Mississippi 
River ; but a few years' growth and expansion satisfied them 
that we needed more, and the Louisiana territory, from the West 
branch of the Mississippi to the British possessions, was acquired. 
Then we acquired Oregon, then California and New Mexico. 
We have enough now for the present ; but this is a young and 
growing nation. It swarms as often as a hive of bees ; and as 
new swarms are turned out each year, there must be hives in 
which they can gather and make their honey. In less than fif- 
teen years, if the same progress that has distinguished this coun- 
try for the last fifteen years continues, every foot of vacant land 
between this and the Pacific Ocean, owned by the United States, 
will be occupied. Will you not continue to increase at the end 
of fifteen years as well as now? I tell you, increase, and multi- 
ply, and expand, is the law of this nation's existence. You can- 
not limit this great Republic by mere boundary lines, saying, 
"Thus far shalt thou go, and no further." Any one of you gen- 
tlemen might as well say to a son twelve years old that he is big 
enough, and must not grow any larger ; and in order to prevent 
his growth, put a hoop around him to keep him to his present 
size. What would be the result? Either the hoop must burst 
and be rent asunder, or the child must die. So it would be with 
this great nation. With our natural increase, growing with a 
rapidity unknown in any part of the globe, with the tide of emi- 
gration that is fleeing from despotism in the old world to seek 
refuge in our own, there is a constant torrent pouring into this 
country that requires more land, more territory upon which to 
settle ; and just as fast as our interests and our destiny require 
additional territory in the North, in the South, or on the islands 
of the ocean, I am for it ; and when we acquire it, will leave the 
people, according to the Nebraska bill, free to do as they please 
on the subject of slavery and every other question. 

I trust now that Mr. Lincoln will deem himself answered on 
his four points. He racked his brain so much in devising these 



148 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

four questions that he exhausted himself, and had not strength 
enough to invent the others. As soon as he is able to hold a coun- 
cil with his advisers, Lovejoy, Farnsworth, and Fred Douglass, 
he will frame and propound others. ["Good, good."] You 
Black Republicans who say good, I have no doubt think that 
they are all good men. I have reason to recollect that some peo- 
ple in this country think that Fred Douglass is a very good man. 
The last time I came here to make a speech, while talking from 
the stand to you, people of Freeport, as I am doing to-day, I saw 
a carriage — and a magnificent one it was — drive up and take a 
position on the outside of the crowd ; a beautiful young lady was 
sitting on the box-seat, whilst Fred Douglass and her mother re- 
clined inside, and the owner of the carriage acted as driver. I 
saw this in your own town. ["What of it?"] All I have to say 
of it is this, that if you. Black Republicans, think that the negro 
ought to be on a social equality with your wives and daughters, 
and ride in a carriage with your wife, whilst you drive the team, 
you have perfect right to do so. I am told that one of Fred 
Douglass's kinsmen, another rich black negro, is now traveling 
in this part of the State, making speeches for his friend Lincoln 
as the champion of black men. ["What have you to say 
against it?"] All I have to say on that subject is, that those of 
you who believe that the negro is your equal and ought to be on 
an equality with you socially, politically, and legally, have a right 
to entertain those opinions, and of course will vote for Mr. Lin- 
coln. 

I have a word to say on Mr. Lincoln's answers to the inter- 
rogatories contained in my speech at Ottawa, and which he has 
pretended to reply to here to-day. Mr. Lincoln makes a great 
parade of the fact that I quoted a platform as having been adopted 
by the Black Republican party at Springfield in 1854, which, it 
turns out, was adopted at another place. Mr. Lincoln loses 
sight of the thing itself in his ecstasies over the mistake I made 
in stating the place where it was done. He thinks that that 
platform was not adopted on the right "spot." 

When I put the direct questions to Mr. Lincoln to ascertain 
whether he now stands pledged to that creed, — to the uncon- 
ditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave law, a refusal to admit any 
more Slave States into the Union, even if the people want them, 
a determination to apply the Wilmot Proviso, not only to all the 
territory we now have, but all that we may hereafter acquire,— he 
refused to answer ; and his followers say, in excuse, that the 
resolutions upon which I based my interrogatories were not 
adopted at the '-'-right spoty Lincoln and his political friends 
are great on '■'■s-pots.''' In Congress, as a representative of this 
State, he declared the Mexican war to be unjust and infamous, 
and would not support it, or acknowledge his own country to be 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 149 

right in the contest, because he said that American blood was 
not shed on American soil in the "■right sfoty And now he can- 
not answer the questions I put to him at Ottawa because the 
resolutions I read were not adopted at the '■'■right spot.'' It 
may be possible that I was led into an error as to the spot on 
which the resolutions I then read were proclaimed, but I was not, 
and am not, in error as to the fact of their forming the basis of 
the creed of the Republican party when that party was first 
organized. I will state to you the evidence I had, and upon 
which I relied for my statement that the resolutions in question 
were adopted at Springfield on the 5th of October, 1854. 
Although I was aware that such resolutions had been passed in 
this district, and nearly all the Northern Congressional Districts 
and County Conventions, I had not noticed whether or not they 
had been adopted by any State convention. In 1856, a debate 
arose in Congress between Major Thomas L. Harris, of the 
Springfield District, and Mr. Norton, of the Joliet District, on 
political matters connected with our State, in the course of which, 
Major Harris quoted those resolutions as having been passed by 
the first Republican State Convention that ever assembled in 
Illinois. I knew that Major Harris was remarkable for his 
accuracy, that he was a very conscientious and sincere man, and 
I also noticed that Norton did not question the accuracy of this 
statement. I therefore took it for granted that it was so ; and the 
other day when I concluded to use the resolutions at Ottawa, I 
wrote to Charles H. Lanphier, editor of the "State Register," at 
Springfield, calling his attention to them, telling him that I had 
been informed that Major Harris was lying sick at Springfield, 
and desiring him to call upon him and ascertain all the facts con- 
cerning the resolutions, the time and the place where they were 
adopted. In reply, Mr. Lanphier sent me two copies of his 
paper, which I have here. The first is a copy of the "State 
Register," published at Springfield, Mr. Lincoln's own town, on 
the 16th of October, 1854, only eleven days after the adjourn- 
ment of the Convention, from which I desire to read the follow- 
ing :— 

"During the late discussions in this city, Lincoln made a speech, 
to which Judge Douglas replied. In Lincoln's speech he took the 
broad ground that, according to the Declaration of Independence, the 
whites and blacks are equal. From this he drew the conclusion, 
which he several times repeated, that the white man had no right to 
pass laws for the government of the black man without the nigger's 
consent. This speech of Lincoln's was heard and applauded by all the 
Abolitionists assembled in Springfield. So soon as Mr. Lincoln was 
done speaking, Mr. Codding arose, and requested all the delegates to 
the Black Republican Convention to withdraw into the Senate 
chamber. They did so; and after long deliberation, they laid down 
the following Abolition platform as the platform on which they stood. 
We call the particular attention of all our readers to it." 



150 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Then follows the identical platform, word for word, which I 
read at Ottawa. Now, that was published in Mr. Lincoln's own 
town, eleven days after the Convention was held, and it has re- 
mained on record up to this day never contradicted. 

When I quoted the resolutions at Ottawa and questioned Mr. 
Lincoln in relation to them, he said that his name was on the 
committee that reported them, but he did not serve, nor did he 
think he served, because he was, or thought he was, in Tazewell 
County at the time the Convention was in session. He did not 
deny that the resolutions were passed by the Springfield Conven- 
tion. He did not know better, and evidently thought that they 
were ; but afterward his friends declared that they had discovered 
that they varied in some respects from the resolutions passed by 
that Convention. I have shown you that I had good evidence 
for believing that the resolutions had been passed at Springfield. 
Mr. Lincoln ought to have known better ; but not a word is said 
about his ignorance on the subject, whilst I, notwithstanding the 
circumstances, am accused of forgery. 

Now, I will show you that if I have made a mistake as to the 
place where these resolutions were adopted, — and when I get 
down to Springfield I will investigate the matter, and see 
whether or not I have, — that the principles they enunciate 
were adopted as the Black Republican platform ["white, white"] , 
in the various counties and Congressional Districts throughout 
the north end of the State in 1854. This platform was 
adopted in nearly every county that gave a Black Republican 
majority for the Legislature in that year, and here is a man 
[pointing to Mr. Denio, who sat on the stand near Deacon 
Bross] who knows as well as any living man that it was the 
creed of the Black Republican party at that time. I would be 
willing to call Denio as a witness, or any other honest man 
belonging to that party. I will now read the resolutions adopted 
at the Rockford Convention on the 30th of August 1854, which 
nominated Washburne for Congress. You elected him on the 
following platform : — 

'■'■Resolved, That the continued and increasing aggressions of 
slavery in our country are destructive of the best rights of a free 
people, and that such aggressions be successfully resisted without the 
united political action of all good men. 

'■'■Resolved, That the citizens of the United States hold in their 
hands peaceful, constitutional, and efficient remedy against the 
encroachments of the slave power, — the ballot box ; and if that remedy 
is boldly and wisely applied, the principles of liberty and eternal jus- 
tice will be established. 

^^ Resolved, That we accept this issue forced upon us by the slave 
power, and, in defence of freedom, will co-operate and be known as 
Republicans, pledged to the accomplishment of the following 
purposes : — 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 151 

"To bring the Administration of the Government back to the 
control of first principles ; to restore Kansas and Nebraska to the 
position of Free Territories ; to repeal and entirely abrogate the 
Fugitive Slave law ; to restrict slavery to those States in which it 
exists ; to prohibit the admission of any more Slave States into the 
Union ; to exclude slavery from all the Territories over which the 
General Government has exclusive jurisdiction ; and to resist the acqui- 
sition of any more Territories, unless the introduction of slavery 
therein forever shall have been prohibited. 

"•Resolved, That in furtherance of these principles we will use 
such constitutional and lawful means as shall seem best adapted to 
their accomplishment, and that we will support no man for office 
under the General or State Government who is not positively 
committed to the support of these principles, and whose personal 
character and conduct is not a guarantee that he is reliable, and shall 
abjure all party allegiance and ties. 

^'■Resolved, That we cordially invite persons of all former 
political parties whatever, in favor of the object expressed in the 
above resolutions, to unite with us in carrying them into effect." 

Well, you think that is a very good platform, do you not? 
If you do, if you approve it now, and think it is all right, you 
will not join with those men who say I libel you by calling these 
your principles, will you? Now, Mr. Lincoln complains; Mr. 
Lincoln charges that I did you and him injustice by saying that 
this was the platform of your party. I am told that Washburne 
made a speech in Galena last night, in which he abused me 
awfully for bringing to light this platform, on which he was 
elected to Congress. He thought that you had forgotten it, as 
he, and Mr. Lincoln desires too. He did not deny but that you had 
adopted it, and that he had subscribed to and was pledged by it, 
but he did not think it was fair to call it up and remind the people 
that it was their platform. 

But I am glad to find that you are more honest in your 
Abolitionism than your leaders, by avowing that it is your plat- 
form, and right in your opinion. 

In the adoption of that platform, you not only declared that 
you would resist the admission of any more Slave States, and 
work for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave law, but you pledged 
yourselves not to vote for any man for State or Federal offices 
who was not committed to these principles. You were thus 
committed. Similar resolutions to those were adopted in your 
county Convention here, and now with your admissions that they 
are your platform and embody your sentiments now as they did 
then, what do you think of Mr. Lincoln, your candidate for the 
United States Senate, who is attempting to dodge the responsi- 
bility of this platform, because it was not adopted in the right 
spot. I thought that it was adopted in Springfield ; but it turns 
out it was not, that it was adopted at Rockford, and in the 



152 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

various counties which comprise this Congressional District. 
When I get into the next district, I will show that the same 
platform was adopted there, and so on through the State, until I 
nail the responsibility of it upon the Black Republican party 
throughout the State. 

A voice : Couldn't you modify, and call it brown? 

Mr. Douglas : Not a bit. I thought that you were 
becoming a little brown when your members in Congress voted 
for the Crittenden-Montgomery bill ; but since you have backed 
out from that position and gone back to Abolitionism you are 
black, and not brown. 

Gentlemen, I have shown you what your platform was in 
1854. You still adhere to it. The same platform was adopted 
by nearly all the counties where the Black Republican party had 
a majority in 1854. I wish now to call your attention to the 
action of your representatives in the Legislature when they 
assembled together at Springfield. In the first place, you must 
remember that this was the organization of a new party. It is 
so declared in the resolutions themselves, which say that you are 
going to dissolve all old party ties and call the new party 
Republican. The old Whig party was to have its throat cut from 
ear to ear, and the Democratic party was to be annihilated and 
blotted out of existence, whilst in lieu of these parties the Black 
Republican party was to be organized on this Abolition platform. 
You know who the chief leaders were in breaking up and destroy- 
ing these two great parties. Lincoln on the one hand, and Trum- 
bull on the other, being disappointed politicians, and having 
retired or been driven to obscurity by an outraged constituency 
because of their political sins, formed a scheme to Abolitionize 
the two parties, and lead the old line Whigs and old line Demo- 
crats captive, bound hand and foot, into the Abolition camp. 
Giddings, Chase, Fred Douglass, and Lovejoy were here to 
christen them whenever they were brought in. Lincoln went to 
work to dissolve the old line Whig party. Clay was dead ; and 
although the sod was not yet green on his grave, this man under- 
took to bring into disrepute those great Compromise measures 
of 1850, with which Clay and Webster were identified. Up to 
1854 the old Whig party and the Democratic party had stood on 
a common platform so far as this slavery question was concerned. 
You Whigs and we Democrats differed about the bank, the tariff', 
distribution, the specie circular, and the sub-treasury, but we 
agreed on this slavery question, and the true mode of preserving 
the peace and harmony of the Union. The Compromise 
measures of 1850 were introduced by Clay, were defended by 
Webster, and supported by Cass, and were approved by Filmore, 
and sanctioned by the National men of both parties. They 
constituted a common plank upon which both Whigs and 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 153 

Democrats stood. In 1852 the Whig party, in its last National 
Convention at Baltimore, indorsed and approved these measures 
of Clay, and so did the National Convention of the Democratic 
party held that same year. Thus the old line Whigs and the 
old line Democrats stood pledged to the great principle of self- 
government, which guarantees to the people of each Territory 
the right to decide the slavery question for themselves. In 1854, 
after the death of Clay and Webster, Mr. Lincoln, on the part 
of the Whigs, undertook to Abolitionize the Whig party, by 
dissolving it, transferring the members into the Abolition camp, 
and making them train under Giddings, Fred Douglass, Lovejoy, 
Chase, Farnsworth, and other Abolition leaders. Trumbull 
undertook to dissolve the Democratic party by taking old 
Democrats into the Abolition camp. Mr. Lincoln was aided in 
his efforts by many leading Whigs throughout the State, your 
member of Congress, Mr. Washburne, being one of the most 
active. Trumbull was aided by many renegades from the 
Democratic party, among whom were John Wentworth, Tom 
Turner, and others, with whom you are familiar. 

[Mr. Turner, who was one of the moderators, here 
interposed, and said that he had drawn the resolutions which 
Senator Douglas had read.] 

Mr. Douglas : Yes, and Turner says that he drew these, 
resolutions. ["Hurrah for Turner," "Hurrah for Douglas."] 
That is right ; give Turner cheers for drawing the resolutions 
if you approve them. If he drew those resolutions, he will not 
deny that they are the creed of the Black Republican party. 

Mr. Turner : They are our creed exactly. 

Mr. Douglas : And yet Lincoln denies that he stands on. 
them. Mr. Turner says that the creed of the Black Republican 
party is the admission of no more Slave States, and yet Mr. 
Lincoln declares that he would not like to be placed in a position 
where he would have to vote for them. All I have to say to 
friend Lincoln is, that I do not think there is much danger of 
his being placed in such an embarrassing position as to be obligee^ 
to vote on the admission of any more Slave States, I propose, 
out of mere kindness, to relieve him from any such necessity. 

When the bargain between Lincoln and Trumbull was 
completed for Abolitionizing the Whig and Democratic parties, 
they "spread" over the State, Lincoln still pretending to be an 
old line Whig, in order to " rope in " the Whigs, and Tiiimbull 
pretending to be as good a Democrat as he ever was, in order to 
coax the Democrats over into the Abolition ranks. They played 
the part that "decoy ducks" play down on the Potomac River. 
In that part of the country they make artificial ducks, and put 
them on the water in places where the wild ducks are to be. 
found, for the purpose of decoying them. Well, Lincoln andj 

21 



154 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Trumbull played the part of these "decoy ducks," and deceived 
enough old line Whigs and old line Democrats to elect a Black 
Republican Legislature. When that Legislature met, the first 
thing it did was to elect as Speaker of the House the very man 
who is now boasting that he wrote the Abolition platform on 
which Lincoln will not stand. I want to know of Mr. Turner 
whether or not, when he was elected, he was a good embodiment 
of Republican principles? 

Mr. Turner : I hope I was then, and am now. 

Mr. Douglas : He swears that he hopes he was then, and 
is now. He wrote that Black Republican platform, and is satis- 
fied with it now. I admire and acknowledge Turner's honesty. 
Every man of you knows that what he says about these resolu- 
tions being the platform of the Black Republican party is true, 
and you also know that each one of these men who are shuffling 
and trying to deny it are only trying to cheat the people out of 
their votes for the purpose of deceiving them still more after the 
election. I propose to trace this thing a little further, in order 
that you can see what additional evidence there is to fasten this 
revolutionary platform upon the Black Republican party. When 
the Legislature assembled, there was a United States Senator to 
elect in the place of General Shields, and before they proceeded 
to ballot, Lovejoy insisted on laying down certain principles by 
which to govern the party. It has been published to the world 
and satisfactorily proven that there was, at the time the alliance 
was made between Trumbull and Lincoln to Abolitionize the 
two parties, an agreement that Lincoln should take Shields's 
place in the United States Senate, and Trumbull should have 
mine so soon as they could conveniently get rid of me. When 
Lincoln was beaten for Shields's place, in a manner I will refer 
to in a few minutes, he felt very sore and restive ; his friends 
grumbled, and some of them came out and charged that the 
most infamous treachery had been practiced against him ; that 
the bargain was that Lincoln was to have had Shields's place, and 
Trumbull was to have waited for mine, but that Trumbull, 
having the control of a few Abolitionized Democrats, he pre- 
vented them from voting for Lincoln, thus keeping him within 
a few votes of an election until he succeeded in forcing the party 
to drop him and elect Trumbull. Well, Trumbull having cheated 
Lincoln, his friends made a fuss, and in order to keep them and 
Lincoln quiet, the party were obliged to come forward, in 
advance, at the last State election, and make a pledge that they 
would go for Lincoln and nobody else. Lincoln could not be 
silenced in any other way. 

Now, there are a great many Black Republicans of you who 
do not know this thing was done. [" White, white," and great 
clamor.] I wish to remind you that while Mr. Lincoln was 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 155 

speaking there was not a Democrat vulgar and blackguard 
enough to interrupt him. But I know that the shoe is pinching 
you. I am clinching Lincoln now, and you are scared to death 
for the result. I have seen this thing before. I have seen men 
make appointments for joint discussions, and the moment their 
man has been heard, try to interrupt and prevent a fair hearing 
of the other side. I have seen your mobs before, and defy your 
wrath. [Tremendous applause.] My friends, do not cheer, 
for I need m}- whole time. The object of the opposition is to 
occupy my attention in order to prevent me from giving the 
whole evidence and nailing this double dealing on the Black 
Republican party. As I have before said, Lovejoy demanded a 
declaration of principles on the part of the Black Republicans of 
the Legislature before going into an election for United States 
Senator. He offered the following preamble and resolutions 
which I hold in my hand : 

'* Whereas, Human slavery is a violation of the principles of 
natural and revealed rights ; and whereas the fathers of the Revolu- 
tion, fully imbued with the spirit of these principles, declared free- 
dom to be the inalienable birthright of all men ; and whereas the 
preamble to the Constitution of the United States avers that that 
instrument was ordained to establish justice, and secure the blessings 
of liberty to ourselves and our posterity ; and whereas, in furtherance 
of the above principles, slavery was forever prohibited in the old 
Northwest Territory, and more recently in all that Territory lying 
west and north of the State of Missouri, by the act of the Federal 
Government ; and whereas the repeal of the prohibition last referred 
to was contrary to the wishes of the people of Illinois, a violation of 
an implied compact long deemed sacred by the citizens of the United 
States, and a wide departure from the uniform action of the General 
Government in relation to the extension of slavery; therefore, 

^''Resolved, by the Ho7ise of Representatives, the Senate concurring 
therein. That our Senators in Congress be instructed, and our Repre- 
sentatives requested to introduce, if not otherwise introduced, and to 
vote for a bill to restore such prohibition to the aforesaid Territories, 
and also to extend a similar prohibition to all territory which now 
belongs to the United States, or which may hereafter come under their 
jurisdiction. 

" Resolved, That our Senators in Congress be instructed, and our 
Representatives requested, to vote against the admission of any State 
into the Union, the Constitution of which does not prohibit slavery, 
whether the territory out of which such State may have been formed 
shall have been acquired by conquest, treaty, purchase, or from 
original territory of the United States. 

" Resolved, That our Senators in Congress be instructed, and 
our Representatives requested, to introduce and vote for a bill to 
repeal an Act entitled ' an Act respecting fugitives from justice and 
persons escaping from the service of their masters;' and, failing in 
that, for such a modification of it as shall secure the right of habeas 
corpus and trial by jury before the regularly constituted authorities of 
the State, to all persons claimed as owing service or labor." 



156 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Those resolutions were introduced by Mr. Lovejoy imme- 
diately preceding the election of Senator. They declared, first, 
that the Wilmot Proviso must be applied to all territory north of 
86 deg., 30 min. Secondly, that it must be applied to all ter- 
ritory south of 36 deg., 30 min. Thirdly, that it must be applied 
to all the territory now owned by the United States ; and finally, 
that it must be applied to all territory hereafter to be acquired by 
the United States. The next resolution declares that no more 
Slave States shall be admitted into this Union under any circum- 
stances whatever, no matter whether they are formed out of ter- 
ritory now owned by us or that we may hereafter acquire, by 
treaty, by Congress, or in any manner whatever. The next 
resolution demands the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave 
law, although its unconditional repeal would leave no provision 
for carrying out that clause of the Constitution of the United 
States which guarantees the surrender of fugitives. If they could 
not get an unconditional repeal, they demanded that that law 
should be so modified as to make it as nearly useless as possible. 
Now, I want to show you who voted for these resolutions. 
When the vote was taken on the first resolution it was decided in 
the affirmative, — yeas 41, nays 32. You will find that this is a 
strict party vote, between the Democrats on the one hand, and 
the Black Republicans on the other. [Cries of "White, white," 
and clamor.] I know your name, and always call things by 
their right name. The point I wish to call your attention to is 
this : that these resolutions were adopted on the 7th day of Feb- 
ruar}', and that on the 8th the}' went into an election for a United 
States Senator, and that day every man who voted for these 
resolutions, with but two exceptions, voted for Lincoln for the 
United States Senate. ["Give us their names."] I will read 
the names over to you if you want them, but I believe your object 
is to occupy my time. 

On the next resolution the vote stood — ^yeas 33, nays 40 ; 
and on the third resolution — yeas 35, nays 47. I wish to impress it 
upon you that every man who voted for those resolutions, with 
but two exceptions, voted on the next day for Lincoln for United 
States Senator. Bear in mind that the members who thus voted 
for Lincoln were elected to the Legislature pledged to vote for 
no man for oflice under the State or Federal Government who 
was not committed to this Black Republican platform. They 
were all so pledged. Mr. Turner, who stands b}'- me, and who 
then represented you, and who says that he wrote those resolu- 
tions, voted for Lincoln, when he was pledged not to do so unless 
Lincoln was in favor of those resolutions. I now ask Mr. Turner 
[turning to Mr. Turner], did you violate your pledge in voting 
for Mr. Lincoln, or did he commit himself to your platform before 
you cast your vote for him ? 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 157 

I could go through the whole list of names here, and show 
you that all the Black Republicans in the Legislature, who voted 
for Mr. Lincoln, had voted on the day previous for these resolu- 
tions. For instance, here are the names of Sargent and Little, 
of Jo Daviess and Carroll, Thomas J. Turner of Stephenson, 
Lawrence of Boone and McHenry, Swan of Lake, Pinckney of 
Ogle County, and Lyman of Winnebago. Thus you see every 
member from your Congressional District voted for Mr. Lincoln, 
and they were pledged not to vote for him unless he was com- 
mitted to the doctrine of no more Slave States, the prohibition of 
slavery in the Territories, and the repeal of the Fugitive Slave 
law. Mr. Lincoln tells you to-day that he is not pledged to any 
such doctrine. Either Mr. Lincoln was then committed to those 
propositions, or Mr. Turner violated his pledges to you when he 
voted for him. Either Lincoln was pledged to each one of those 
propositions, or else every Black Republican Representative from 
this Congressional District violated his pledge of honor to his 
constituents by voting for him. I ask you which horn of the 
dilemma will you take ? Will you hold Lincoln up to the platform 
of his party, or will you accuse ever}'- Representative you had in 
the Legislature of violating his pledge of honor to his consti- 
tuents ? There is no escape for you. Either Mr. Lincoln was 
committed to those propositions, or your members violated their 
faith. Take either horn of the dilemma you choose. There is 
no dodging the question ; I want Lincoln's answer. He says he 
was not pledged to repeal the Fugitive Slave law, that he does 
not quite like to do it ; he will not introduce a law to repeal it, 
but thinks there ought to be some law ; he does not tell what it 
ought to be ; upon the whole, he is altogether undecided, and 
don't know what to think or do. That is the substance of his 
answer upon the repeal of the Fugitive Slave law. I put the 
question to him distinctly, whether he indorsed that part of the 
Black Republican platform which calls for the entire abrogation 
and repeal of the Fugitive Slave law. He answers. No ! that he 
does not indorse that ; but he does not tell what he is for, or what 
he will vote for. His answer is, in fact, no answer at all. Why 
cannot he speak out, and say what he is for, and what he will do? 

In regard to there being no more Slave States, he is not 
pledged to that. He would not like, he says, to be put in a 
position where he would have to vote one way or another upon 
that question. I pray you, do not put him in a position that 
would embarrass him so much. Gentlemen, if he goes to the 
Senate, he may be put in that position, and then which way will 
he vote? 

A Voice : How will you vote? 

Mr. Douglas : I will vote for the admission of just such a 
State as by the form of their constitution the people show they 



158 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

want; if the}'' want slavery, they shall have it; if they prohibit 
slavery, it shall be prohibited. They can form their institutions 
to please themselves, subject only to the Constitution ; and I, for 
one, stand ready to receive them into the Union. Why cannot 
your Black Republican candidates talk out as plain as that when 
they are questioned ? 

I do not want to cheat any man out of his vote. No man is 
deceived in regard to my principles if I have the power to express 
myself in terms explicit enough to convey my ideas. 

Mr. Lincoln made a speech when he was nominated for 
the United States Senate which covers all these Abolition plat- 
forms. He there lays down a proposition so broad in its Aboli- 
tionism as to cover the whole ground. 

"In my opinion it [the slavery agitation] will not cease until a 
crisis shall have been reached and passed. 'A house divided against 
itself cannot stand.' I believe this government cannot endure per- 
manently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the house to fall, 
but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one 
thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the 
further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in 
the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advo- 
cates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the 
States, — old as well as new, North as well as South." 

There you find that Mr. Lincoln lays down the doctrine that 
this Union cannot endure divided as our fathers made it, with 
Free and Slave States. He sa3^s they must all become one thing, 
or all the other ; that they must all be free or all slave, 
or else the Union cannot continue to exist ; it being his 
opinion that to admit any more Slave States, to continue to divide 
the Union into Free and Slave States, will dissolve it. I want 
to know of Mr. Lincoln whether he will vote for the admission 
of another Slave State. 

He tells you the Union cannot exist unless the States 
are all free or all slave ; he tells you that he is opposed to 
making them all slave, and hence he is for making them 
all free, in order that the Union may exist ; and yet he will 
not say that he will not vote against another Slave State, 
knowing that the Union must be dissolved if he votes for it. I 
ask you if that is fair dealing? The true intent and inevitable 
conclusion to be drawn from his first Springfield speech is, that 
he is opposed to the admission of any more Slave States under 
any circumstance. If he is so opposed, why not say so? If he 
believes this Union cannot endure divided into Free and Slave 
States, that they must all become free in order to save the Union, 
he is bound as an honest man to vote against any more Slave States. 
If he believes it, he is bound to do it. Show me that it is my duty, 
in order to save the Union, to do a particular act, and I will do 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 159 

it if the Constitution does not prohibit it. I am not for the 
dissolution of the Union under any circumstances. I will pursue 
no course of conduct that will give just cause for the dissolution 
of the Union. The hope of the friends of freedom throughout 
the world rests upon the perpetuity of this Union. The down- 
trodden and oppressed people who are suffering under European 
despotism all look with hope and anxiety to the American Union 
as the only resting place and permanent home of freedom and 
self-government. 

Mr. Lincoln says that he believes that this Union cannot 
continue to endure with Slave States in it, and yet he will not 
tell you distinctly whether he will vote for or against the admis- 
sion of any more Slave States, but says he would not like to be 
put to the test. I do not think he will be put to the test. I do 
not think that the people of Illinois desire a man to represent 
them who would not like to be put to the test on the performance 
of a high constitutional duty. I will retire in shame from the 
Senate of the United States when I am not willing to be put to 
the test in the performance of my duty. I have been put to 
severe tests. I have stood by my principles in fair w^eather and 
in foul, in the sunshine and in the rain. I have defended the 
great principles of self-government here among you w^hen North- 
ern sentiment ran in a torrent against me, and I have defended 
that same great principle when Southern sentiment came down 
like an avalanche upon me. I was not afraid of any test they 
put to me. I knew I was right ; I knew my principles were 
sound ; I knew that the people would see in the end that I had 
done right, and I knew that the God of heaven would smile upon 
me if I was faithful in the performance of my duty. 

Mr. Lincoln makes a charge of corruption against the 
Supreme Court of the United States, and two Presidents of the 
United States, and attempts to bolster it up by saying that I did 
the same against the Washington "Union." Suppose I did make 
that charge of corruption against the Washington "Union," w'hen 
it was true, does that justify him in making a false charge against 
me and others? That is the question I would put. He says 
that at the time the Nebraska bill was introduced, and before it 
was passed, there was a conspiracy between the Judges of the 
Supreme Court, President Pierce, President Buchanan, and my- 
self, by that bill and the decision of the court to break down the 
barrier and establish slavery all over the Union. Does he not 
know that that charge is historically false as against President 
Buchanan? He knows that Mr. Buchanan was at that time in 
England, representing this country with distinguished ability at 
the Court of St. James, that he was there for a long time before, 
and did not return for a year or more after. He knows that to 
be true, and that fact proves his charge to be false as against Mr. 



160 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Buchanan. Then, again, I wish to call his attention to the fact 
that at the time the Nebraska bill was passed, the Dred Scott 
case was not before the Supreme Court at all ; it was not upon 
the docket of the Supreme Court ; it had not been brought there ; 
and the Judges in all probability knew nothing of it. Thus the 
history of the country proves the charge to be false as against 
them. As to President Pierce, his high character as a man of 
integrity and honor is enough to vindicate him from such a 
charge ; and as to myself, I pronounce the charge an infamous 
lie, whenever and wherever made, and by whomsoever made. I 
am willing that Mr. Lincoln should go and rake up every public 
act of mine, every measure I have introduced, report I have 
made, speech delivered, and criticise them ; but when he charges 
upon me a connipt conspiracy for the purpose of perverting the 
institutions of the country, I brand it as it deserves. I say the 
history of the country proves it to be false, and that it could not 
have been possible at the time. But now he tries to protect him- 
self in this charge, because I made a charge against the Wash- 
ington "Union." My speech in the Senate against the Wash- 
ington "Union" was made because it advocated a revolutionary 
doctrine, by declaring that the Free States had not the right to 
prohibit slavery within their own limits. Because I made that 
charge against the Washington "Union," Mr. Lincoln says it 
was a charge against Mr, Buchanan. Suppose it was : is Mr. 
Lincoln the peculiar defender of Mr. Buchanan? Is he so inter- 
ested in the Federal Administration, and so bound to it, that he 
must jump to the rescue and defend it from every attack that I 
may make against it? I understand the whole thing. The Wash- 
ington "Union,' under that most corrupt of all men, Cornelius 
Wendell, is advocating Mr. Lincoln's claim to the Senate. Wen- 
dell was the printer of the last Black Republican House of Rep- 
resentatives ; he was a candidate before the present Democratic 
House, but was ignominiously kicked out ; and then he took the 
money which he had made out of the public printing by means 
of the Black Republicans, bought the Washington "Union," and 
is now publishing it in the name of the Democratic party, and 
advocating Mr. Lincoln's election to the Senate. Mr. Lincoln 
therefore considers an attack upon Wendell and his con-upt gang 
as a personal attack upon him. This only proves what I have 
charged, — that there is an alliance between Lincoln and his sup- 
porters, and the Federal office-holders of thisState, and the Presi- 
dential aspirants out of it, to break me down at home. 

Mr. Lincoln feels bound to come in to the rescue of the Wash- 
ington "Union." In that speech which I delivered in answer to 
the Washington "Union," I made it distinctly against the 
"Union," and againstthe "Union" alone. I did not choose to go 
beyond that. If I have reason to attack the President's conduct, 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 161 

I will do it in language that will not be misunderstood. When I 
differed with the President, I spoke out so that you all heard me. 
That question passed away ; it resulted in the triumph of my 
principle, by allowing the people to do as they please ; and there 
is an end of the controversy. Whenever the great principle of 
self-government, — the right of the people to make their own 
Constitution, and come into the Union with slavery or without it, 
as they see proper, — shall again arise, you will find me standing 
firm in defence of that principle, and fighting whoever fights it. If 
Mr. Buchanan stands, as I doubt not he will, by the recommen- 
dation contained in his Message, that hereafter all State constitu- 
tions ought to be submitted to the people before the admission of 
the State into the Union, he will find me standing by him firmly, 
shoulder to shoulder, in carrying it out. I know Mr. Lincoln's 
object : he wants to divide the Democratic party, in order that 
he may defeat me and gel to the Senate. 

[Mr. Douglas's time here expired, and he stopped on the 
moment.] 



MR. LINCOLN'S REJOINDER. 

My Friends : It will readily occur to you that I cannot, in 
half an hour, notice all the things that so able a man as 
Judge Douglas can say in an hour and a half; and I hope, there- 
fore, if there be anything that he has said upon which you would 
like to hear something from me, but which I omit to comment 
upon, you will bear in mind that it would be expecting an im- 
possibility for me to go over his whole ground. I can but take up 
some of the points that he has dwelt upon, and employ my half- 
hour specially on them. 

The first thing I have to say to you is a word in regard to 
Judge Douglas's declaration about the "vulgarity and black- 
guardism" in the audience, — that no such thing, as he says, was 
shown by any Democrat while I was speaking. Now, I only 
wish, by way of reply on this subject, to say that while /was 
speaking, / used no "vulgarity or blackguardism" toward any 
Democrat. 

Now, my friends, I come to all this long portion of the 
Judge's speech, — perhaps half of it, — which he has devoted to 
the various resolutions and platforms that have been adopted in 
the different counties in the different Congressional Districts, and 
in the Illinois Legislature, which he supposes are at variance 
with the positions I have assumed before you to-day. It is true 
that many of these resolutions are at variance with the positions 
I have here assumed. All I have to ask is that we talk reason- 
ably and rationally about it. I happen to know, the Judge's 

22 



162 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

opinion to the contrary notwithstanding, that I have never tried 
to conceal my opinions, nor tried to deceive any one in reference 
to them. He may go and examine all the members who voted 
for me for United States Senator in 1855, after the election of 
1854. They were pledged to certain things here at home, and 
were determined to have pledges from me; and if he will find 
any of these persons who will tell him anything inconsistent with 
what I say now, I will resign, or rather retire from the race, and 
give him no more trouble. The plain truth is this : At the in- 
troduction of the Nebraska policy, we believed there was a new 
era being introduced in the history of the Republic, which tended 
to the spread and perpetuation of slavery. But in our oppo- 
sition to that measure we did not agree with one another in 
everything. The people in the north end of the State were for 
stronger measures of opposition than we of the central and south- 
ern portions of the State, but we were all opposed to the Nebraska 
doctrine. We had that one feeling and that one sentiment in 
common. You at the north end met in your Conventions and 
passed your resolutions. We in the middle of the State and 
further south did not hold such Conventions and pass the same 
resolutions, although we had in general a common view and a 
common sentiment. So that these meetings which the Judge has 
alluded to, and the resolutions he has read from, were local, and 
did not spread over the whole State. We at last met together in 
1856, from all parts of the State, and we agreed upon a common 
platform. You, who held more extreme notions, either yielded 
those notions, or, if not wholly yielding them, agreed to yield 
them practically, for the sake of embodying the opposition to 
the measures which the opposite party were pushing forward at 
that time. We met you then, and if there was anything yielded, 
it was for practical purposes. We agreed then upon a platform 
for the party throughout the entire State of Illinois, and now we 
are all bound, as a party, to that platform. And I say here to 
you, if any one expects of me — in the case of my election — that 
I will do anything not signified by our Republican platform and 
my answers here to-day, I tell you very frankly that person will 
be deceived. I do not ask for the vote of any one who supposes 
that I have secret purposes or pledges that I dare not speak out. 
Cannot the Judge be satisfied? If he fears, in the unfortunate 
case of my election, that my going to Washington will enable 
me to advocate sentiments contrary to those which I expressed 
when you voted for and elected me, I assure him that his fears are 
wholly needless and groundless. Is the Judge really afraid of 
any such thing? I'll tell you what he is afraid of. He is afraid 
we'll all fuU together. This is what alarms him more than any- 
thing else. For my part, I do hope that all of us, entertaining 
a common sentiment in opposition to what appears to us a design 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 163 

to nationalize and perpetuate slavery, will waive minor differ- 
ences on questions which either belong to the dead pastor the 
distant future, and all pull together in this struggle. What are 
your sentiments ? If it be true that on the ground which I occupy 
— ground which I occupy as frankly and boldly as Judge Doug- 
las does his, — my views, though partly coinciding with yours, 
are not as perfectly in accordance with your feelings as his are, 
I do say to you in all candor, go for him, and not for me. I hope 
to deal in all things fairly with Judge Douglas, and with the peo- 
ple of the State, in this contest. And if I should never be elected 
to any office, I trust I may go down with no stain of falsehood 
upon my reputation, notwithstanding the hard opinions Judge 
Douglas chooses to entertain of me. 

The Judge has again addressed himself to the Abolition ten- 
dencies of a speech of mine made at Springfield in June last. I 
have so often tried to answer what he is always saying on that 
melancholy theme that I almost turn with disgust from the dis- 
cussion, — from the repetition of an answer to it. I trust that 
nearly all of this intelligent audience have read that speech. If 
3'ou have, I may venture to leave it to you to inspect it closely, 
and see whether it contains any of those "bugaboos" which 
frighten Judge Douglas. • 

The Judge complains that I did not fully answer his ques- 
tions. If I have the sense to comprehend and answer those 
questions, I have done so fairly. If it can be pointed out to me 
how I can more fully and fairly answer him, I aver I have not 
the sense to see how it is to be done. He says, I do not declare 
I would in any event vote for the admission of a Slave State into 
the Union. If I have been fairly reported, he will see that I did 
give an explicit answer to his interrogatories ; I did not merely 
say that I would dislike to be put to the test, but I said clearly, if 
I were put to the test, and a Territory from which slavery had 
been excluded should present herself with a State constitution 
sanctioning slavery, — a most extraordinary thing, and wholly 
unlikely to happen, — I did not see how I could avoid voting for 
her admission. But he refuses to understand that I said so, and 
he wants this audience to understand that I did not say so. Yet 
it will be so reported in the printed speech that he cannot help 
seeing it. 

He says if I should vote for the admission of a Slave State I 
would be voting for a dissolution of the Union, because I hold 
that the Union cannot permanently exist half slave and half free. 
I repeat that I do not believe this government can endure per- 
manently half slave and half free ; yet I do not admit, nor does 
it all follow, that the admission of a single Slave State will per- 
manently fix the character and establish this as a universal slave 
nation. The Judge is very happy indeed at working up these 
4 



164 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

quibbles. Before leaving the subject of answering questions, I 
aver as my confident belief, when you come to see our speeches 
in print, that you will find every question which he has asked me 
more fairly and boldly and fully answered than he has answered 
those which I put to him. Is not that so? The two speeches 
may be placed side by side, and I will venture to leave it to im- 
partial judges whether his questions have not been more directly 
and circumstantially answered than mine. 

Judge Douglas says he made a charge upon the editor of 
the Washington " Union," alone, of entertaining a purpose to rob 
the States of their power to exclude slavery from their limits. 
I undertake to say, and I make the direct issue, that he did not 
make his charge against the editor of the "Union" alone. I 
will undertake to prove by the record here that he made that 
charge against more and higher dignitaries than the editor of 
the Washington "Union." I am quite aware that he was 
shirking and dodging around the form in which he put it, but I 
can make it manifest that he leveled his "fatal blow" against 
more persons than this Washington editor. Will he dodge it 
now by alleging that I am trying to defend Mr. Buchanan 
against the charge? Not at all. Am I not making the same 
charge myself? I am trying to show that you. Judge Douglas, 
are a witness on my side. I am not defending Buchanan, and I 
will tell Judge Douglas that in my opinion, when he made that 
charge, he had an eye farther north than he was to-day. He 
was then fighting against people who called htm a Black 
Republican and an Abolitionist. It is mixed all through his 
speech, and it is tolerably manifest that his eye was a great deal 
farther north than it is to-day. The Judge says that though he 
made this charge, Toombs got up and declared there was not a 
man in the United States, except the editor of the " Union," 
who was in favor of the doctrines put forth in that article. And 
thereupon I understand that the Judge withdrew the charge. 
Although he had taken extracts from the newspaper, and then 
from the Lecompton Constitution, to show the existence of a 
conspiracy to bring about a " fatal blow," by which the States 
were to be deprived of the right of excluding slavery, it all went 
to pot as soon as Toombs got up and told him it was not true. 
It reminds me of the story that John Phoenix, the California 
railroad surveyor, tells. He says they started out from the 
Plaza to the Mission of Dolores. They had two ways of 
determining distances. One was by a chain and pins taken 
over the ground. The other was by a " go-it-ometer," — an 
invention of his own, — a three-legged instrument, with which he 
computed a series of triangles between the points. At night he 
turned to the chain-man to ascertain what distance they had 
come, and found that by some mistake he had merely dragged 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 165 

the chain over the ground, without keeping any record. By the 
"go-it-ometer" he found he had made ten miles. Being 
skeptical about this, he asked a drayman who was passing how 
far it was to the Plaza. The drayman replied it was just half a 
mile ; and the surveyor put it down in his book, — just as Judge 
Douglas says, after he had made his calculations and computa- 
tions, he took Toombs's statement. I have no doubt that after 
Judge Douglas had made his charge, he was as easily satisfied 
about its truth as the surveyor was of the drayman's statement 
of the distance to the Plaza. Yet it is a fact that the man who 
put forth all that matter which Douglas deemed a " fatal blow" 
at State sovereignty, was elected by the Democrats as public 
printer. 

Now, gentlemen, you may take Judge Douglas's speech of 
March 22, 1858, beginning about the middle of page 21, and 
reading to the bottom of page 24, and you will find the evidence 
on which I say that he did not make his charge against the 
editor of the "Union" alone. I cannot stop to read it, but I 
will give it to the reporters. Judge Douglas said : — 

" Mr. President, you here find several distinct propositions 
advanced boldly by the Washington ' Union ' editorially, and 
apparently authoritatively , and every man who questions any of them 
is denounced as an Abolitionist, a Free-soiler, a fanatic. The 
propositions are, first, that the primary object of all government at 
its original institution is the protection of persons and property ; 
second, that the Constitution of the United States declares that the 
citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and 
immunities of citizens in the several States; and that, therefore, 
thirdly, all State laws, whether organic or otherwise, which prohibit the 
citizens of one State from settling in another with their slave property, 
and especially declaring it forfeited, are direct violations of the 
original intention of the Government and Constitution of the United 
States; and, fourth, that the emancipation of the slaves of the 
Northern States was a gross outrage on the rights of property, 
inasmuch as it was involuntarily done on the part of the owner. 

" Remember that this article was published in the ' Union ' on 
the 17th of November, and on the 18th appeared the first article, 
giving the adhesion of the ' Union ' to the Lecompton Constitution. 
It was in these words : — 

" ' Kansas and her Constitution. — The vexed question is 
settled. The problem is solved. The dead point of danger is passed. 
All serious trouble to Kansas affairs is over and gone — ' 

"And a column, nearly, of the same sort. Then, when you 
come to look into the Lecompton Constitution, you find the same 
doctrine incorporated in it which was put forth editorially in the 
, Union.' What is it? 

" 'Article 7, Section 1. The right of property is before and 
higher than any constitutional sanction ; and the right of the owner 
of a slave to such slave and its increase is the same and as invariable 
as the right of the owner of any property whatever.' 



166 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

"Then in the schedule is a provision that the Constitution may 
be amended after 1864 by a two-thirds vote. 

" ' But no alteration shall be made to affect the right of property 
in the ownership of slaves.' 

" It will be seen by these clauses in the Lecompton Constitution 
that they are identical in spirit with this autlioritative article in the 
Washington 'Union' of the day previous to its indorsement of this 
Constitution. 

"When I saw that article in the 'Union' of the 17th of 
November, followed by the glorification of the Lecompton Constitu- 
tion on the 18th of November, and this clause in the Constitution 
asserting the doctrine that a State has no right to prohibit slavery 
within its limits, I saw that there was d, fatal blow being struck at 
the sovereignty of the States of this Union." 

Here he says, *' Mr. President, you here find several distinct 
propositions advanced boldly, and apparently authoritatively. "" 
By whose authority, Judge Douglas? Again, he says in another 
place, "It will be seen by these clauses in the Lecompton 
Constitution that they are identical in spirit with this authori- 
tative article." By zvhose authority? Who do you mean to say 
authorized the publication of these articles? He knows that the 
Washington "Union" is considered the organ of the Administra- 
tion. / demand of Judge Douglas by -whose authority he meant 
to say those articles were published, if not by the authority of 
the President of the United States and his Cabinet? I defy him 
to show whom he referred to, if not to these high functionaries 
in the Federal Government. More than this, he says the articles 
in that paper and the provisions of the Lecompton Constitution 
are "identical," and, being identical, he argues that the authors 
are co-operating and conspiring together. He does not use the 
word "conspiring," but what other construction can you put 
upon it? He winds up with this : — 

" When I saw that article in the 'Union' of the 17th of Novem- 
ber, followed by the glorification of the Lecompton Constitution 
on the 18th of November, and this clause in the Constitution asserting 
the doctrine that a State has no right to prohibit slavery within its 
limits, I saw that there was a fatal blow being struck at the sover- 
eignty of the States of the Union." 

I ask him if all this fuss was made over the editor of this 
newspaper. It would be a terribly 'fatal blow" indeed which a 
single man could strike, when no President, no Cabinet officer, no 
member of Congress, was giving strength and efficiency to the 
moment. Out of respect to Judge Douglas's good sense I must 
believe he didn't manufacture his idea of the "fatal" character of 
that blow out of such a miserable scapegrace as he represents 
that editor to be. But the Judge's eye is farther south now. 
Then, it was very peculiarly and decidedly north. His hope 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 167 

rested on the idea of visiting the great "Black Republican" 
party, and making it the tail of his new kite. He knows he was 
then expecting from day to day to turn Republican, and place 
himself at the head of our organization. He has found that these 
despised "Black Republicans" estimate him by a standard which 
he has taught them none too well. Hence he is crawling back 
into his old camp, and you will find him eventually installed in 
full fellowship among those whom he was then battling, and 
with whom he now pretends to be at such fearful variance. 
[Loud applause, and cries of "Go on, go on."] I cannot, gentle- 
men ; my time has expired." 



THIRD JOINT DEBATE, AT JONESBORO. 

September 15, 1858. 

MR. DOUGLAS'S SPEECH. 

L#ADiEs AND Gentlemen : I appear before you to-dav in 
pursuance of a previous notice, and have made arrangements 
with Mr. Lincoln to divide time, and discuss with him the lead- 
ing political topics that now agitate the country. 

Prior to 1854 this country was divided into two great politi- 
cal parties known as Whig and Democratic. These parties dif- 
fered from each other on certain questions which were then 
deemed to be important to the best interests of the Republic. 
Whigs and Democrats differed about a bank, the tariff, distribu- 
tion, the specie circular, and the sub-treasury. On those issues 
we went before the country and discussed the principles, objects, 
and measures of the two great parties. Each of the parties could 
proclaim its principles in Louisiana as well as in Massachusetts, 
in Kentucky as well as in Illinois. Since that period, a great 
revolution has taken place in the formation of parties, by which 
they now seem to be divided by a geographical line, a large 
party in the North being arrayed under the Abolition or Repub- 
lican banner, in hostility to the Southern States, Southern people, 
and Southern institutions. It becomes important for us to inquire 
how this transformation of parties has occurred, made from those 
of national principles to geographical factions. You remember 
that in 1850 — this country was agitated from its centre to its cir- 
cumference about this slavery question — it became necessary for 
the leaders of the great Whig party and the leaders of the great 
Democratic party to postpone, for the time being, their particular 
disputes, and unite first to save the Union before they should 
quarrel as to the mode in which it was to be governed. During 
the Congress of 1849-50, Henry Clay was the leader of the 
Union men, supported by Cass and Webster, and the leaders of 



168 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the Democracy and the leaders of the Whigs, in opposition to 
Northern Abolitionists or Southern Disunionists. That great 
contest of 1850 resulted in the establishment of the Compromise 
measures of that year, which measures rested on the great prin- 
ciples that the people of each State and each Territory of this 
Union ought to be permitted to regulate their own domestic in- 
stitutions in their own way, subject to no other limitation than 
that which the Federal Constitution imposes. 

I now wish to ask you whether that principle was right or 
wrong which guaranteed to every State and every community 
the right to form and regulate their domestic institutions to suit 
themselves. These measures were adopted, as I have previously 
said, by the joint action of the Union Whigs and Union Demo- 
crats in opposition to Northern Abolitionists and Southern Dis- 
unionists. In 1858, when the Whig party assembled, at Balti- 
more, in National Convention for the last time, they adopted the 
principle of the Compromise Measures of 1850 as their rule of 
party action in the future. One month thereafter the Democrats 
assembled at the same place to nominate a candidate for the 
Presidency, and declared the same great principle as the rule of 
action by which the Democracy would be governed. The Presi- 
dential election of 1852 was fought on that basis. It is true that 
the Whigs claimed special merit for the adoption of those meas- 
ures, because they asserted that their great Clay originated them, 
their god-like Webster defended them, and their Filmore signed 
the bill making them the law of the land ; but, on the other hand, 
the Democrats claimed special credit for the Democracy, upon 
the ground that we gave twice as many votes in both Houses of 
Congress for the passage of these measures as the Whig party. 

Thus you see that in the Presidential election of 1852, the 
Whigs were pledged by their platform and their candidate to the 
principle of the Compromise Measures of 1850, and the Demo- 
cracy were likewise pledged by our principles, our platform, and 
our candidate to the same line of policy, to preserve peace and 
quiet between the different sections of this Union. Since that 
period the Whig party has been transformed into a sectional 
party, under the name of the Republican party, whilst the Demo- 
cratic party continues the same national party it was at that day. 
All sectional men, all men of Abolition sentiments and principles, 
no matter whether they were old Abolitionists or had been Whigs 
or Democrats, rally under the sectional Republican banner, and 
consequently all National men, all Union-loving men, whether 
Whigs, Democrats, or by whatever name they have been known, 
ought to rally under the Stars and Stripes in defence of the Con- 
stitution as our fathers made it, and of the Union as it has existed 
under the Constitution. 

How has this departure from the faith of the Democracy 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 169 

and the faith of the Whig party been accomplished ? In 1854, 
certain restless, ambitious, and disappointed politicians through- 
out the land took advantage of the temporary excitement created 
by the Nebraska bill to try and dissolve the old Whig party and 
the old Democratic party, to Abolitionize their members, and 
lead them, bound hand and foot, captives into the Abolition camp. 
In the State of New York a convention was held by some of 
these men, and a platform adopted, every plank of which was as 
black as night, each one relating to the negro, and not one 
referring to the interests of the white man. That example was 
followed throughout the Northern States, the effort being made 
to combine all the Free States in hostile array against the Slave 
States. The men who thus thought that they could build up a 
great sectional party, and through its organization control the 
political destinies of this country, based all their hopes on the 
single fact that the North was the stronger division of the nation, 
and hence, if the North could be combined against the South, a 
sure victory awaited their efforts. I am doing no more than 
justice to the truth of history when I say that in this State, 
Abraham Lincoln, on behalf of the Whigs, and Lyman Trumbull, 
on behalf of the Democrats, were the leaders who undertook to 
perform this grand scheme of Abolitionizing the two parties to 
which they belonged. They had a private arrangement as to 
what should be the political destiny of each of the contracting 
parties before they went into the operation. The arrangement 
was that Mr. Lincoln was to take the old line Whigs with him, 
claiming that he was still as good a Whig as ever, over to the 
Abolitionists, and Mr. Trumbull was to run for Congress in the 
Belleville District, and, claiming to be a good Democrat, coax 
the old Democrats into the Abolition camp, and when, by the 
joint efforts of the Abolitionized Whigs, the Abolitionized Demo- 
crats, and the old line Abolition and Free-soil party of this State, 
they should secure a majority in the Legislature. Lincoln was 
then to be made United States Senator in Shields's place, Tiiim- 
bull remaining in Congress until I should be accommodating 
enough to die or resign, and give him a chance to follow Lincoln. 
That was a very nice little bargain so far as Lincoln and Trumbull 
were concerned, if it -had been carried out in good faith, and 
friend Lincoln had attained to senatorial dignity according to the 
contract. They went into the contest in every part of the State, 
calling upon all disappointed politicians to join in the crusade 
against the Democracy, and appealed to the prevailing sentiments 
and prejudices in all the northern counties of the State. In three 
Congressional Districts in the north end of the State they adopted, 
as the platform of this new party thus formed by Lincoln and 
Trumbull in connection with the Abolitionists, all of those princi- 
ples which aimed at a warfare on the part of the North against 

23 



170 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the South. They declared in that platform that the Wilmot 
Proviso was to be applied to all the Territories of the United 
States, north as well as south of 36 deg. 30 min., and not only to 
all the territory we then had, but all that we might hereafter 
acquire ; that hereafter no more Slave States should be admitted 
into this Union, even if the people of such State desired slavery ; 
that the Fugitive Slave law should be absolutely and uncondition- 
ally repealed ; that slavery should be abolished in the District of 
Columbia ; that the slave-trade should be abolished between the 
different States ; and, in fact, every article in their creed related 
to this slavery question, and pointed to a Northern geographical 
party in hostility to the Southern States of this Union. Such 
were their principles in Northern Illinois. A little further south 
they became bleached, and grew paler just in proportion as 
public sentiment moderated and changed in this direction. They 
were Republicans or Abolitionists in the North, anti-Nebraska 
men down about Springfield, and in this neighborhood they 
contented themselves with talking about the inexpediency of the 
repeal of the Missouri Compromise. In the extreme northern 
counties they brought out men to canvass the State whose com- 
plexion suited their political creed ; and hence Fred Douglass, 
the negro, was to be found there, following General Cass, and 
attempting to speak on behalf of Lincoln, Tinimbull, and Aboli- 
tionism, against that illustrious senator. Why, they brought Fred 
Douglass to Freeport, when I was addressing a meeting there, in 
a carriage driven by the white owner, the negro sitting inside 
with the white lady and her daughter. When I got through 
canvassing the northern counties that year, and progressed as far 
south as Springfield, I was met and opposed in discussion by 
Lincoln, Lovejoy, Trumbull, and Sidney Breese, who were on 
one side. Father Giddings, the high-priest of Abolitionism, had 
just been there, and Chase came about the time I left. ["Why 
didn't you shoot him?"] 1 did take a running shot at them ; 
but as I was single-handed against the white, black, and mixed 
drove, I had to use a shot-gun and fire into the crowd, instead of 
taking them off singly with a rifle. Trumbull had for his lieu- 
tenants, in aiding him to Abolitionize the Democracy, such men 
as John Wentworth of Chicago, Governor Reynolds of Belleville, 
Sidney Breese of Carlisle, and John Dougherty of Union, each 
of whom modified his opinions to suit the locality he was in. 
Dougherty, for instance, would not go much further than to talk 
about the inexpediency of the Nebraska bill, whilst his allies at 
Chicago advocated negro citizenship and negro equality, putting 
the white man and the negro on the same basis under the law. 
Now, these men, four years ago, were engaged in a conspiracy 
to break down the Democracy ; to-day they are again acting 
together for the same purpose ! They do not hoist the same flag, 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 171 

they do not own the same principles or profess the same faith, but 
conceal their union for the sake of policy. In the northern 
counties, you find that all the conventions are called in the name 
of the Black Republican party ; at Springfield, they dare not call 
a Republican Convention, but invite all the enemies of the 
Democracy to unite ; and when they get down into Egypt, 
Trumbull issues notices calling upon the '''■Free Veniocracy'" to 
assemble and hear him speak. I have one of the handbills call- 
ing a Ti'umbull meeting at Waterloo the other day, which I 
received there, which is in the following language : — 

A meeting of the Free Democracy will take place in Waterloo, 
on Monday, Sept. 18th inst., whereat Hon. Lyman Trumbull, Hon. 
John Baker and others will address the people upon the diflferent 
political topics of the day. Members of all parties are cordially 
invited to be present, and hear and determine for themselves. 

The Monroe Free Democracy. 

What is that name of " Free Democrats " put forth for, unless 
to deceive the people, and make them believe that Trumbull and 
his followers are not the same party as that which raises the black 
flag of Abolitionism in the northern part of this State, and makes 
war upon the Democratic party throughout the State ? When I 
put that question to them at Waterloo on Saturday last, one of 
them rose and stated that they had changed their name for 
political effect, in order to get votes. There was a candid 
admission. Their object in changing their party organization 
and principles in different localities was avowed to be an attempt 
to cheat and deceive some portion of the people until after the 
election. Why cannot a political party that is conscious of the 
rectitude of its purposes and the soundness of its principles 
declare them everywhere alike? I would disdain to hold any 
political principles that I could not avow in the same terms in 
Kentucky that I declared in Illinois, in Charleston as well as in 
Chicago, in New Orleans as well as in New York. So long as 
we live under a Constitution common to all the States, our 
political faith ought to be as broad, as liberal, and just as that 
Constitution itself, and should be proclaimed alike in every 
portion of the Union. 

But it is apparent that our opponents find it necessary, for 
partisan effect, to change their colors in different counties in order 
to catch the popular breeze, and hope with these discordant 
materials combined together to secure a majority in the Legis- 
lature for the purpose of putting down the Democratic party. 
This combination did succeed in 1854 so far as to elect a majority 
of their confederates to the Legislature, and the first important 
act which they performed was to elect a Senator in the place of 
the eminent and gallant Senator Shields. His term expired in 



172 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the United States Senate at that time, and he had to be crushed 
by the Abolition coalition for the simple reason that he would not 
join in their conspiracy to wage war against one-half of the 
Union. That was the only objection to General Shields. He 
had served the people of the State with ability in the Legislature, 
he had served j^ou with fidelity and ability as Auditor, he had 
performed his duties to the satisfaction of the whole country at 
the head of the Land Department at Washington, he had covered 
the State and the Union with immortal glory on the bloody fields 
of Mexico in defence of the honor of our flag, and yet he had to 
be stricken down by this unholy combination. And for what 
cause? Merely because he would not join a combination of one 
half of the States to make war upon the other half, after having 
poured out his heart's blood for all the States in the Union. Trum- 
bull was put in his place by Abolitionism. How did Trumbull 
get there? Before the Abolitionists would consent to go into an 
election for United States Senator they required all the members 
of this new combination to show their hands upon this question 
of Abolitionism. Lovejoy, one of their high-priests, brought in 
resolutions defining the Abolition creed, and required them to 
commit themselves on it by their votes, — yea or nay. In that 
creed, as laid down by Lovejoy, they declared, first, that the 
Wilmot Proviso must be put on all the Territories of the United 
States, north as well as south of 36 deg. 30 min., and that no 
more territory should ever be acquired unless slavery was at first 
prohibited therein ; second, that no more States should ever be 
received into the Union unless slavery was first prohibited, by 
Constitutional provision, in such States; third, that the Fugitive 
Slave law must be immediately repealed, or, failing in that, then 
such amendments were to be made to it as would render it 
useless and inefficient for the objects for which it was passed, etc. 
The next day after these resolutions were offered they were voted 
upon, part of them carried, and the others defeated, the same 
men who voted for them, with only two exceptions, voting soon 
after for Abraham Lincoln as their candidate for the United 
States Senate. He came within one or two votes of being 
elected, but he could not quite get the number required, for the 
simple reason that his friend Trumbull, who was a party to the 
bargain by which Lincoln was to take Shields's place, controlled 
a few Abolitionized Democrats in the Legislature, and would not 
allow them all to vote for him, thus wronging Lincoln by per- 
mitting him on each ballot to be almost elected, but not quite, 
until he forced them to drop Lincoln and elect him (Trumbull), 
in order to unite the party. Thus you find that although the 
Legislature was carried that year by the bargain between 
Trumbull, Lincoln, and the Abolitionists, and the union of these 
discordant elements in one harmonious party, yet Trumbull 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 173 

violated his pledge, and played a Yankee trick on Lincoln when 
they came to divide the spoils. Perhaps you would like a little 
evidence on this point. If you would, I will call Colonel James 
H. Matheny, of Springfield, to the stand, Mr. Lincoln's especial 
confidential friend for the last twenty years, and see what he will 
say upon the subject of this bargain. Matheny is now the Black 
Republican, or Abolition, candidate for Congress in the Spring- 
field District against the gallant Colonel Harris, and is making 
speeches all over that part of the State against me and in favor of 
Lincoln, in concert with Trumbull. He ought to be a good 
witness, and I will read an extract from a speech which he made 
in 1856, when he was mad because his friend Lincoln had been 
cheated. It is one of numerous speeches of the same tenor that 
were made about that time, exposing this bargain between Lin- 
coln, Trumbull, and the Abolitionists. Matheny then said : — 

" The Whigs, Abolitionists, Know-Nothings, and renegade 
Democrats made a solemn compact for the purpose of carrying this 
State against the Democracy, on this plan : 1st. That they would all 
combine and elect Mr, Trumbull to Congress, and thereby carry his 
district for the Legislature, in order to throw all the strength that 
could be obtained into that body against the Democrats. 2d. That 
when the Legislature should meet, the officers of that body, such as 
Speaker, clerks, door-keepers, etc., would be given to the Abolition- 
ists ; and 8d. That the Whigs were to have the United States Senator. 
That, accordingly, in good faith, Trumbull was elected to Congress, 
and his district carried for the Legislature, and, when it convened, 
the Abolitionists got all the officers of that body ; and, thus far, the 
'bond' was fairly executed. The Whigs, on their part, demanded 
the election of Abraham Lincoln to the United States Senate, that 
the bond might be fulfilled, the other parties to the contract having 
already secured to themselves all that was called for. But, in the 
most perfidious manner, they refused to elect Mr. Lincoln, and the 
mean, low-lived, sneaking Trumbull succeeded, by pledging all that 
was required by any party, in thrusting Lincoln aside, and foisting 
himself, an excrescence from the rotten bowels of the Democracy, 
into the United States Senate: and thus it has ever been, that an 
honest man makes a bad bargain when he conspires or contracts with 
rogues." 

Matheny thought that his friend Lincoln made a bad bargain 
when he conspired and contracted with such rogues as Trumbull 
and his Abolition associates in that campaign. Lincoln was 
shoved off the track, and he and his friends all at once began to 
mope, became sour and mad, and disposed to tell, but dare not ; 
and thus they stood for a long time, until the Abolitionists coaxed 
and flattered him back by their assurances that he should 
certainly be a senator in Douglas's place. In that way the 
Abolitionists have been enabled to hold Lincoln to the alliance 
up to this time, and now they have brought him into a fight 



174 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

against me, and he is to see if he is again to be cheated by them» 
Lincoln, this time, though, required more of them than a promise, 
and holds their bond, if not security, that Lovejoy shall not cheat 
him as Trumbull did. 

When the Republican Convention assembled at Springfield, 
in June last, for the purpose of nominating State officers only,, 
the Abolitionists could not get Lincoln and his friends into it 
until they would pledge themselves that Lincoln should be their 
candidate for the Senate ; and you will find, in proof of this, 
that that Convention passed a resolution unanimously declaring 
that Abraham Lincoln was the "first, last, and only choice" of 
the Republicans for United States Senator. He was not willing 
to have it understood that he was merely their first choice, or their 
last choice, but their only choice. The Black Republican party had 
nobody else. Browning was nowhere ; Governor Bissell was of 
no account ; Archie Williams was not to be taken into consider- 
ation ; John Wentworth was not worth mentioning ;JohnM. Palmer 
was degraded ; and their party presented the extraordinary 
spectacle of having but one, — the first, the last, and only choice 
for the Senate. Suppose that Lincoln should die, what a horrible 
condition the Republican party would be in ! They would have 
nobody left. They have no other choice, and it was necessary 
for them to put themselves before the world in this ludicrous, 
ridiculous attitude of having no other choice, in order to quiet 
Lincoln's suspicions, and assure him that he was not to be cheated 
by Lovejoy, and the trickery by which Trumbull outgeneraled 
him. Well, gentlemen, I think they will have a nice time of it 
before they get through. I do not intend to give them any 
chance to cheat Lincoln at all this time. I intend to relieve him 
of all anxiety upon that subject, and spare them the mortification 
of more exposures of contracts violated, and the pledged honor 
of rogues forfeited. 

But I wish to invite your attention to the chief points at issue 
between Mr. Lincoln and myself in this discussion. Mr. Lin- 
coln, knowing that he was to be candidate of his party, on 
account of the arrangement of which I have already spoken, 
knowing that he was to receive the nomination of the Conven- 
tion for the United States Senate, had his speech, accepting that 
nomination, all written and committed to memory, ready to be 
delivered the moment the nomination was announced. Accord- 
ingly, when it was made, he was in readiness, and delivered his 
speech, a portion of which I will read in order that I may state 
his political principles fairly, by repeating them in his own 
language : 

"We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was instituted for 
the avowed object, and with the confident promise, of putting an end 
to slavery agitation ; under the operation of that policy, that agitation 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 175 

has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. I believe it 
will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. 'A 
house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this government 
cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect 
the Union to be dissolved, I do not expect the house to fall ; but I do 
expect it w^ill cease to be divided. It vv^ill become all one thing or all 
the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the spread of 
it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is 
in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it for- 
ward until it shall become alike lawful in all the States, North as well 
as South." 

There you have Mr. Lincoln's first and main proposition, 
upon which he bases his claims, stated in his own language. He 
tells 3'ou that this Republic cannot endure permanently divided 
into Slave and Free States, as our fathers made it. He says 
that they must all become free or all become slave, that they 
must all be one thing or all be the other, or this government can- 
not last. Why can it not last, if we will execute the government 
in the same spirit and upon the same principles upon which it is 
founded? Lincoln, by his proposition, says to the South: "If 
you desire to maintain your institutions as they are now, you 
must not be satisfied with minding your own business, but you 
must invade Illinois and all the other Northern States, establish 
slavery in them, and make it universal ;" and in the same lan- 
guage he says to the North : " You must not be content with 
regulating your own affairs and minding your own business, but 
if you desire to maintain your freedom, you must invade the 
Southern States, abolish slavery there and everywhere, in order 
to have the States all one thing or all the other." I say that this 
is the inevitable and irresistible result of Mr. Lincoln's argument, 
inviting a warfare between the North and the South, to be car- 
ried on with ruthless vengeance until the one section or the other 
shall be driven to the wall, and become the victim of the rapacity 
of the other. What good would follow such a system of warfare ? 
Suppose the North should succeed in conquering the South, how 
much would she be the gainer? or suppose the South should 
conquer the North, could the Union be preserved in that way? 
Is this sectional warfare to be waged between the Northern 
States and Southern States until they all shall become uniform in 
their local and domestic institutions, merely because Mr. Lincoln 
says that a house divided against itself cannot stand, and pre- 
tends that this scriptural quotation, this language of our Lord and 
Master, is applicable to the American Union and the American 
Constitution? Washington and his compeers, in the Convention 
that framed the Constitution, made this government divided into 
Free and Slave States. It was composed then of thirteen sover- 
eign and independent States, each having sovereign authority 
over its local and domestic institutions, and all bound together 



176 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

by the Federal Constitution. Mr. Lincoln likens that bond of 
the Federal Constitution, joining Free and Slave States together, 
to a house divided against itself, and says that it is contrary to 
the law of God, and cannot stand. When did he learn, and by 
what authority does he proclaim, that this Government is con- 
trary to the law of God and cannot stand? It has stood thus 
divided into Free and Slave States from its organization up to 
this day. During that period we have increased from four mil- 
lions to thirty millions of people ; we have extended our territory 
from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean ; we have acquired the 
Floridas and Texas, and other territory sufficient to double our 
geographical extent ; we have increased in population, in wealth, 
and in power beyond any example on earth ; we have risen from 
a weak and feeble power to become the terror and admiration of 
the civilized world ; and all this has been done under a Constitu- 
tion which Mr. Lincoln, in substance, says is in violation of the 
law of God, and under a Union divided into Free and Slave 
States, which Mr. Lincoln thinks, because of such division, can- 
not stand. Surely Mr. Lincoln is a wiser man than those who 
framed the Government. Washington did not believe, nor did 
his compatriots, that the local laws and domestic institutions that 
were well adapted to the Green Mountains of Vermont were 
suited to the rice plantations of South Carolina ; they did not 
believe at that day that in a Republic so broad and expanded as 
this, containing such a variety of climate, soil, and interest, that 
uniformity in the local laws and domestic institutions was either 
desirable or possible. They believed then, as our experience 
has proved to us now, that each locality, having different inter- 
ests, a different climate, and different surroundings, required dif- 
ferent local laws, local policy, and local institutions, adapted to 
the wants of that locality. Thus our government was formed on 
the principle of diversity in the local institutions and laws, and 
not on that of uniformity. 

As my time flies, I can only glance at these points, and not 
present them as fully as I would wish, because I desire to bring 
all the points in controversy between the two parties before you, 
in order to have Mr. Lincoln's reply. He makes war on the 
decision of the Supreme Court, in the case known as the Dred 
Scott case. I wish to say to you, fellow-citizens, that I have no 
war to make on that decision, or any other ever rendered by the 
Supreme Court. I am content to take that decision as it stands 
delivered by the highest judicial tribunal on earth, — a tribunal 
established by the Constitution of the United States for that pur- 
pose ; and hence that decision becomes the law of the land, bind- 
ing on you, on me, and on every other good citizen, whether we 
like it or not. Hence I do not choose to go into an argument to 
prove, before this audience, whether or not Chief Justice Taney 
understood the law better than Abraham Lincoln. 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 177 

Mr. Lincoln objects to that decision, first and mainly because 
it deprives the negro of the rights of citizenship. I am as mvich 
opposed to his reason for that objection as I am to the objection 
itself. I hold that a negro is not and never ought to be a citizen 
of the United States. I hold that this government was made on 
the white basis, by white men, for the benefit of white men and 
their posterity forever, and should be administered by white men 
and none others. I do not believe that the Almighty made the 
negro capable of self-government. I am aware that all the Abo- 
lition lecturers that you find traveling about through the coun- 
try are in the habit of reading the Declaration of Independence 
to prove that all men were created equal, and endowed by their 
Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Mr. Lincoln is very much 
in the habit of following in the track of Lovejoy in this particular, 
by reading that part of the Declaration of Independence to prove 
that the negro was endowed by the Almighty with the inalienable 
right of equality with white men. Now, I say to you, my fellow- 
citizens, that in my opinion the signers of the Declaration had no 
reference to the negro whatever when they declared all men to 
be created equal. They desired to express by that phrase white 
men, men of European birth and European descent, and had no 
reference either to the negro, the savage Indians, the Fejee, the 
Malay, or any other inferior and degraded race, when they spoke 
of the equality of men. One great evidence that such was their 
understanding is to be found in the fact that at that time every 
one of the thirteen colonies was a slaveholding colony, every 
signer of the Declaration represented a slaveholding constituency, 
and we know that not one of them emancipated his slaves, much 
less ofTered citizenship to them, when they signed the Declara- 
tion ; and yet, if they intended to declare that the negro was the 
equal of the white man, and entitled by divine right to an equal- 
ity with him, they were bound, as honest men, that day and hour 
to have put their negroes on an equality with themselves. Instead 
of doing so, with uplifted eyes to Heaven they implored the divine 
blessing upon them, during the seven years' bloody war they had 
to fight to maintain that Declaration, never dreaming that they 
were violating divine law by still holding the negroes in bondage 
and depriving them of equality. 

My friends, I am in favor of preserving this government as 
our fathers made it. It does not follow by any means that because 
a negro is not your equal or mine, that hence he must necessarily 
be a slave. On the contrary, it does follow that we ought to ex- 
tend to the negro every right, every privilege, every immunity, 
which he is capable of enjoying, consistent with the good of soci- 
ety. When you ask me what these rights are, what their nature 
and extent is, I tell you that that is a question which each State 

24 



178 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

of this Union must decide for itself. Illinois has alread}' decided 
the question. We have decided that the negro must not be a 
slave within our limits ; but we have also decided that the negro 
shall not be citizen within our limits ; that he shall not vote, hold 
office, or exercise any political rights. I maintain that Illinois, 
as a sovereign State, has a right thus to fix her policy with refer- 
ence to the relation between the white man and the negro ; but 
while we had that right to decide the question for ourselves, we 
must recognize the same right in Kentucky and in every other 
State to make the same decision, or a different one. Having de- 
cided our own policy with reference to the black race, we must 
leave Kentucky and Missouri and every other State perfectly 
free to make just such a decision as they see proper on that ques- 
tion. 

Kentucky has decided that question for herself. She has 
said that within her limits a negro shall not exercise any political 
rights, and she has also said that a portion of the negroes under 
the laws of that State shall be slaves. She had as much right to 
adopt that as her policy as we had to adopt the contrary 
for our policy. New York has decided that in that State 
a negro may vote if he has $250 worth of property, and if 
he owns that much he may vote upon an equality with the 
white man. I, for one, am utterly opposed to negro suffrage 
anywhere and under any circumstances ; yet, inasmuch as the 
Supreme Court have decided in the celebrated Dred Scott case 
that a State has a right to confer the privilege of voting upon 
free negroes, I am not going to make war upon New York be- 
cause she has adopted a policy repugnant to my feelings. But 
New York must mind her own business, and keep her negro suf- 
frage to herself, and not attempt to force it upon us. 

In the State of Maine they have decided that a negro may 
vote and hold office on an equality with a white man. I had oc- 
casion to say to the senators from Maine, in a discussion, last ses- 
sion, that if they thought that the white people within the limits 
of their State were no better than negroes, I would not quarrel 
with them for it, but they must not say that my white constituents 
of Illinois were no better than negroes, or we would be sure to 
quarrel. 

The Dred Scott decision covers the whole question, and de- 
clares that each State has the right to settle this question of suf- 
frage for itself, and all questions as to the relations between the 
white man and the negro. Judge Taney expressly la3^s down 
the doctrine. I receive it as law, and I say that while those 
States are adopting regulations on that subject disgusting and ab- 
horrent, according to my views, I will not make war on them if 
they will mind their own business and let us alone. 

I now come back to the question. Why cannot this Union 
exist forever, divided into Free and Slave States, as our fathers 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 179 

made it? It can thus exist if each State will carry out the prin- 
ciples upon which our institutions were founded ; to wit, the right 
of each State to do as it pleases, without meddling with its neigh- 
bors. Just act upon that great principle, and this Union will not 
only live forever, but it will extend and expand until it covers 
the whole continent, and makes this confederacy one grand, 
ocean-bound Republic. We must bear in mind that we are yet a 
young nation, growing with a rapidity unequaled in the history 
of the world, that our national increase is great, and that the emi- 
gration from the Old World is increasing, requiring us to expand 
and acquire new territory from time to time, in order to give our 
people land to live upon. If we live upon the principle of State 
rights and State sovereignty, each State regulating its own affairs 
and minding its own business, we can go on and extend indefi- 
nitely, just as fast and as far as we need the territory. The time 
may come, indeed has now come, when our interests would be 
advanced by the acquisition of the Island of Cuba. When we 
get Cuba we must take it as we find it, leaving the people to de- 
cide the question of slavery for themselves, without interference 
on the part of the Federal Government or of any State of this 
Union. So, when it becomes necessary to acquire any portion 
of Mexico or Canada, or of this continent or the adjoining islands, 
we must take them as we find them, leaving the people free to do 
as they please, — to have slavery or not, as they choose. I never 
have inquired and never will inquire whether a new State, apply- 
ing for admission, has slavery or not for one of her institutions. 
If the Constitution that is presented be the act and deed of the 
people, and embodies their will, and they have the requisite popu- 
lation, I will admit them, with slavery or without it, just as that 
people shall determine. My objection to the Lecompton Consti- 
tution did not consist in the fact that it made Kansas a Slave 
State. I would have been as much opposed to its admission 
under such a Constitution as a Free State as I was opposed to its 
admission under it as a Slave State. I hold that that was a ques- 
tion which that people had a right to decide for themselves, and 
that no power on earth ought to have interfered with that deci- 
sion. In my opinion, the Lecompton Constitution was not the act 
and deed of the people of Kansas, and did not embody their will ; 
and the recent election in that Territory, at which it was voted 
down by nearly ten to one, shows conclusively that I was right in 
saying, when the Constitution was presented, that it was not the 
act and deed of the people, and did not embody their will. 

If we wish to preserve our institutions in their purity, and 
transmit them unimpaired to our latest posterity, we must preserve 
with religious good faith that great principle of self-government 
which guarantees to each and every State, old and new, the 
right to make just such constitutions as they desire, and come 



180 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

into the Union with their own constitution, and not one palmed 
upon them. Whenever you sanction the doctrine that Congress 
may crowd a constitution down the throats of an unwilling 
people, against their consent, you will subvert the great funda- 
mental principle upon which all our free institutions rest. In the 
future I have no fear that the attempt will ever be made. President 
Buchanan declared in his annual message that hereafter the rule 
adopted in the Minnesota case, requiring a constitution to be sub- 
mitted to the people, should be followed in all future cases ; and 
if he stands by that recommendation, there will be no division in 
the Democratic party on that principle in the future. Hence, 
the great mission of the Democracy is to unite the fraternal feel- 
ing of the whole country, restore peace and quiet, by teaching 
each State to mind its own business, and regulate its own 
domestic affairs, and all to unite in carrying out the Constitution 
as our fathers made it, and thus to preserve the Union and render 
it perpetual in all time to come. Why should we not act as our 
fathers who made the <jovernment? There was no sectional 
strife in Washington's army. They were all brethren of a 
common confederacy ; they fought under a common flag that 
they might bestow upon their posterity a common destiny ; and 
to this end they poured out their blood in common streams, and 
shared, in some instances, a common grave. 



MR. LINCOLN'S REPLY. 

Ladies and Gentlemen : There is very much in the prin- 
ciples that Judge Douglas has here enunciated that I most cor- 
dially approve, and over which I shall have no controversy with 
him. Insofar as he has insisted that all the States have the 
right to do exactly as they please about all their domestic rela- 
tions, including that of slavery, I agree entirely with him. He 
places me wrong in spite of all I can tell him, though I repeat it 
again and again, insisting that I have no difference with him 
upon this subject. I have made a great many speeches, some of 
which have been printed, and it will be utterly impossible for 
him to find anything that I have ever put in print contrary to 
what I now say upon this subject. I hold myself under con- 
stitutional obligations to allow the people in all the States, 
without interference, direct or indirect, to do exactly as they 
please ; and I deny that I have any inclination to interfere with 
them, even if there were no such constitutional obligation. I can 
only say again that I am placed improperly — altogether improp- 
erly, in spite of all I can say — when it is insisted that I entertain 
any other view or purposes in regard to that matter. 

While I am upon this subject, I will make some answers 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 181 

briefly to certain propositions that Judge Douglas has put. 
He says, "Why can't this Union endure permanently, half slave 
and half free?" I have said that I supposed it could not, and I 
will try, before this new audience, to give briefly some of the 
reasons for entertaining that opinion. Another form of his 
question is, "Why can't we let it stand as our fathers placed it?" 
That is the exact difficulty between us. I say that Judge Douglas 
and his friends have changed it from the position in which our 
fathers originally placed it. I say, in the way our fathers origin- 
ally left the slavery question, the institution was in the course 
of ultimate extinction, and the public mind rested in the belief 
that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. I say when this 
government was first established, it was the policy of its founders 
to prohibit the spread of slavery into the new Territories of the 
United States, where it had not existed. But Judge Douglas 
and his friends have broken up that policy, and placed it upon a 
new basis, by which it is to become national and perpetual. All 
I have asked or desired anywhere is that it should be placed 
back again upon the basis that the fathers of our government 
originally placed it upon. I have no doubt that xXwouldh^zova^ 
extinct, for all time to come, if we but readopted the policy of 
the fathers, by restricting it to the limits it has already covered, — 
restricting it from the new Territories. 

I do not wish to dwell at great length on this branch of the 
subject at this time, but allow me to repeat one thing that I have 
stated before. Brooks — the man who assaulted Senator Sumner 
on the floor of the Senate, and who was complimented with 
dinners, and silver pitchers, and gold-headed canes, and a good 
many other things for that feat — in one of his speeches declared 
that when this government was originally established, nobody 
expected that the institution of slavery would last until this day. 
That was but the opinion of one man, but it was such an opinion 
as we can never get from Judge Douglas or anybody in favor of 
slavery in the North at all. You can sometimes get it from a 
Southern man. He said at the same time that the framers of our 
government did not have the knowledge that experience has 
taught us ; that experience and the invention of the cotton-gin have 
taught us that the perpetuation of slavery is a necessity. He 
insisted, therefore, upon its being changed from the basis upon 
which the fathers of the government left it to the basis of its per- 
petuation and nationalization. 

I insist that this is the difference between Judge Douglas 
and myself, — that Judge Douglas is helping that change along. 
I insist upon this government being placed where our fathers 
originally placed it. 

I remember Judge Douglas once said that he saw the 
evidences on the statute books of Congress of a policy in the 



182 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

origin of government to divide slavery and freedom by a 
geographical line ; that he saw an indisposition to maintain that 
policy, and therefore he set about studying up a way to settle 
the institution on the right basis, — the basis which he thought it 
ought to have been placed upon at first ; and in that speech he 
confesses that he seeks to place it, not upon the basis that the 
fathers placed it upon, but upon one gotten up on " original 
principles." When he asks me why we cannot get along with it 
in the attitude where our fathers placed it, he had better clear up 
the evidences that he has himself changed it from that basis, that 
he has himself been chiefly instrumental in changing the policy 
of the fathers. Any one who will read his speech of the 22d 
of last March will see that he there makes an open confession, 
showing that he set about fixing the institution upon an altogether 
different set of principles. I think I have fully answered him 
when he asks me why we cannot let it alone upon the basis 
where our fathers left it, by showing that he has himself changed 
the whole policy of the government in that regard. 

Now, fellow-citizens, in regard to this matter about a contract 
that was made between Judge Trumbull and myself, and all that 
long portion of Judge Douglas's speech on this subject, — I wish 
simply to say what I have said to him before, that he cannot 
know whether it is true or not, and I do know that there is not a 
word of truth in it. And I have told him so before. I don't 
want any harsh language indulged in, but I do not know how 
to deal with this persistent insisting on a story that I know to 
be utterly without truth. It used to be a fashion amongst men 
that when a charge was made, some sort of proof was brought 
forward to establish it, and if no proof was found to exist, the 
charge was dropped. I don't know how to meet this kind of an 
argument. I don't want to have a fight with Judge Douglas, 
and I have no way of making an argument up into the consistency 
of a corn-cob and stopping his mouth with it. All I can do is, 
good-humoredly to say that, from the beginning to the end of 
all that story about a bargain between Judge Trumbull and 
myself, there is not a zvord of truth in it. I can only ask him to 
show some sort of evidence of the truth of his story. He brings 
forward here and reads from what he contends is a speech by 
James H. Matheny, charging such a bargain between Trumbull 
and myself. My own opinion is that Matheny did do some such 
immoral thing as to tell a story that he knew nothing about. I 
believe he did. I contradicted it instantly, and it has been 
contradicted by Judge Trumbull, while nobody has produced 
any proof, because there is none. Now, whether the speech 
which the Judge brings forward here is really the one Matheny 
made, I do not know, and I hope the Judge will pardon me for 
doubting the genuineness of this document, since his production 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 183 

of those Springfield resolutions at Ottawa. I do not wish to 
dwell at any great length upon this matter. I can say nothing 
when a long story like this is told, except it is not true, and demand 
that he who insists upon it shall produce some proof. That is 
all any man can do, and I leave it in that way, for I know of no 
other way of dealing with it. 

The Judge has gone over a long account of the old Whig 
and Democratic parties, and it connects itself with this charge 
against Trumbull and myself. He says that they agreed upon a 
compromise in regard to the slavery question in 1850 ; that in a 
National Democratic Convention resolutions were passed to 
abide by that compromise as a finality upon the slavery question. 
He also says that the Whig party in National Convention agreed 
to abide by and regard as a finality the Compromise of 1850. I 
understand the Judge to be altogether right about that ; I under- 
stand that part of the history of the country as stated by him to be 
correct. I recollect that I, as a member of that jury, acquiesced 
in that compromise. I recollect in the Presidential election which 
followed, when we had General Scott up for the Presidency, 
Judge Douglas was around berating us Whigs as Abolitionists, 
precisely as he does to-day, — not a bit of difference. I have 
often heard him. We could do nothing when the old Whig 
party was alive that was not Abolitionism, but it has got an 
extremely good name since it has passed away. 

When that Compromise was made it did not repeal the old 
Missouri Compromise. It left a region of United States territory 
half as large as the present territory of the United States, north 
of the line of 36 degrees 30 minutes, in which slavery was 
prohibited by Act of Congress. This Compromise did not 
repeal that one. It did not affect or propose to repeal it. But 
at last it became Judge Douglas's duty, as he thought (and I 
find no fault with him), as Chairman of the Committee on 
Territories, to bring in a bill for the organization of a Territorial 
Government, — first of one, then of two Territories north of that 
line. When he did so, it ended in his inserting a provision 
substantially repealing the Missouri Compromise. That was 
because the Compromise of 1850 had not repealed it. And now 
I ask why he could not have let that Compromise alone? We 
were quiet from the agitation of the slavery question. We were 
making no fuss about it. All had acquiesced in the Compromise 
measures of 1850. We never had been seriously disturbed by 
any Abolition agitation before that period. When he came to 
form governments for the Territories north of the line of 36 
degrees 30 minutes, why could he not have let that matter stand 
as it was standing? Was it necessary to the organization of a 
Territory? Not at all. Iowa lay north of the line, and had 
been organized as a Territory and come into the Union as a 



184 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

State without disturbing that Compromise. There was no sort 
of necessity for destroying it to organize these Territories. But^ 
gentlemen, it would take up all my time to meet all the little 
quibbling arguments of Judge Douglas to show that the Missouri 
Compromise was repealed by the Compromise of 1850. My own 
opinion is, that a careful investigation of all the arguments ta 
sustain the position that that Compromise was virtually repealed 
by the Compromise of 1850 would show that they are the merest 
fallacies. I have the report that Judge Douglas first brought into 
Congress at the time of the introduction of the Nebraska bill, 
which in its original form did not repeal the Missouri Compromise, 
and he there expressly stated that he had forborne to do so 
because it had not been done by the Compromise of 1850. I close 
this part of the discussion on my part by asking him the question, 
again, " Why, when we had peace under the Missouri Compro- 
mise, could you not have let it alone?" 

In complaining of what I said in my speech at Springfield, 
in which he says I accepted my nomination for the senatorship 
(where, by the way, he is at fault, for if he will examine it, he 
will find no acceptance in it), he again quotes that portion in 
which I said that "a house divided against itself cannot stand." 
Let me say a word in regard to that matter. 

He tries to persuade us that there must be a variety in the 
different institutions of the States of the Union ; that that variety 
necessarily proceeds from the variety of soil, climate, of the face 
of the country, and the difference in the natural features of the 
States. I agree to all that. Have these very matters ever pro- 
duced any difficulty amongst us? Not at all. Have we ever had 
any quarrel over the fact that they have laws in Louisiana 
designed to regulate the commerce that springs from the pro- 
duction of sugar? Or because we have a different class relative 
to the production of flour in this State? Have they produced 
any differences? Not at all. They are the very cements of this 
Union. They don't make the house a house divided against 
itself. They are the props that hold up the house and sustain 
the Union. 

But has it been so with this element of slavery? Have we 
not always had quarrels and difficulties over it? And when will 
we cease to have quarrels over it? Like causes produce like 
effects. It is worth while to observe that we have generally had 
comparative peace upon the slavery question, and that there has 
been no cause for alarm until it was excited by the effort to 
spread it into new territory. Whenever it has been limited to its 
present bounds, and there has been no effort to spread it, there 
has been peace. All the trouble and convulsion has proceeded 
from efforts to spread it over more territory. It was thus at the 
date of the Missouri Compromise. It was so again with the 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 185 

annexation of Texas ; so with the territory acquired by the 
Mexican war ; and it is so now. Whenever there has been an 
effort to spread it, there has been agitation and resistance. Now, 
I appeal to this audience (very few of whom are my political 
friends), as national men, whether we have reason to expect that 
the agitation in regard to this subject will cease while the causes 
that tend to reproduce agitation are actively at work? Will not 
the same cause that produced agitation in 1820, when the Missouri 
Compromise was formed, — that which produced the agitation upon 
the annexation of Texas, and at other times, — work out the same 
results always? Do you think that the nature of man will be 
changed, that the same causes that produced agitation at one 
time will not have the same effect at another? 

This has been the result so far as my observation of the 
slavery question and my reading in history extends. What right 
have we then to hope that the trouble will cease, — that the agita- 
tion will come to an end, — until it shall either be placed back 
where it originally stood, and where the fathers originally placed 
it, or, on the other hand, until it shall entirely master all opposi- 
tion? This is the view I entertain, and this is the reason why I 
entertained it, as Judge Douglas has read from my Springfield 
speech. 

Now, my friends, there is one other thing that I feel myself 
under some sort of obligation to mention. Judge Douglas has 
here to-day — in a very rambling way, I was about saying — spoken 
of the platforms for which he seeks to hold me responsible. He 
says, "Why can't you come out and make an open avowal of 
principles in all places alike?" and he reads from an advertise- 
ment that he says was used to notify the people of a speech to be 
made by Judge Trumbull at Waterloo. In commenting on it he 
desires to know whether we cannot speak frankly and manfully, 
as he and his friends do. How, I ask, do his friends speak out 
their own sentiments? A Convention of his party in this State 
met on the 21st of April at Springfield, and passed a set of reso- 
lutions which they proclaim to the country as their platform. 
This does constitute their platform, and it is because Judge 
Douglas claims it is his platform — that these are his principles 
and purposes — that he has a right to declare he speaks his senti- 
ments " frankly and manfully." On the 9th of June Colonel 
John Dougherty, Governor Reynolds, and others, calling them- 
selves National Democrats, met in Springfield and adopted a set 
of resolutions which are as easily understood, as plain and as 
definite in stating to the country and to the world what they 
believed in and would stand upon, as Judge Douglas's platform. 
Now, what is the reason that Judge Douglas is not willing that 
Colonel Dougherty and Governor Reynolds should stand upon 
their own written and printed platform as well as he upon his? 

25 



186 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Why must he look farther than their platform when he claims 
himself to stand by his platform? 

Again, in reference to our platform : On the 16th of June the 
Republicans had their Convention and published their platform, 
which is as clear and distinct as Judge Douglas's. In it they 
spoke their principles as plainly and as definitely to the world. 
What is the reason that Judge Douglas is not willing I should 
stand upon that platform ? Why must he go around hunting for 
some one who is supporting me, or has supported me at some 
time in his life, and who has said something at some time contrary 
to that platform? Does the Judge regard that i-ule as a good 
one? If it turn out that the rule is a good one for me — that I am 
responsible for any and every opinion that any man has 
expressed who is my friend, — then it is a good rule for him. I 
ask, is it not as good a rule for him as it is for me? In my 
opinion, it is not a good rule for either of us. Do you think 
differently, Judge ? 

Mr. Douglas : I do not. 

Mr. Lincoln : Judge Douglas says he does not think dif- 
ferently. I am glad of it. Then can he tell me why he is 
looking up resolutions of five or six years ago, and insisting that 
they were my platform, notwithstanding my protest that they are 
not, and never were my platform, and my pointing out the plat- 
form of the State Convention which he delights to say nominated 
me for the Senate? I cannot see what he means by parading 
these resolutions, if it is not to hold me responsible for them in 
some way. If he says to me here that he does not hold the rule 
to be good, one way or the other, I do not comprehend how he 
could answer me more fully if he answered me at greater length. 
I will therefore put in as my answer to the resolutions that he 
has hunted up against me, what I, as a lawyer, would call a good 
plea to a bad declaration. I understand that it is a maxim 
of law that a poor plea may be a good plea to a bad declaration. 
I think that the opinions the Judge brings from those who sup- 
port me, yet differ from me, is a bad declaration against me ; 
but if I can bring the same things against him, I am putting in a 
good plea to that kind of declaration, and now I propose to try it. 

At Freeport, Judge Douglas occupied a large part of his 
time in producing resolutions and documents of various sorts, as 
I understood, to make me somehow responsible for them ; and I 
propose now doing a little of the same sort of thing for him. In 
1850 a very clever gentleman by the name of Thompson Camp- 
bell, a personal friend of Jvidge Douglas and myself, a political 
friend of Judge Douglas and opponent of mine, was a candidate 
for Congress in the Galena District. He was interrogated as to 
his views on this same slavery question. I have here before me 
the interrogatories, and Campbell's answers to them. I will read 
them : 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 187 



Interrogatories. 



1st. Will you, if elected, vote for and cordially support a bill 
prohibiting slavery in the Territories of the United States? 

2d. Will you vote for and support a bill abolishing slavery in 
the District of Columbia ? 

8d. Will you oppose the admission of any Slave States which 
may be formed out of Texas or the Territories? 

4th. Will you vote for and advocate the repeal of the Fugitive 
Slave law passed at the recent session of Congress? 

5th. Will you advocate and vote for the election of a Speaker 
of the House of Representatives who shall be willing to organize the 
committee of that House so as to give the Free States their just influ- 
ence in the business of legislation? 

6th. What are your views, not only as to the constitutional 
right of Congress to prohibit the slave-trade between the States, but 
also as to the expediency of exercising that right immediately? 

Campbell's Reply. 

To the first and second interrogatories, I answer unequivocally in 
the affirmative. 

To the third interrogatory I reply, that I am opposed to the admis- 
sion of any more Slave States into the Union, that may be formed out 
of Texas or any other Territory. 

To the fourth and fifth interrogatories I unhesitatingly answer in 
the affirmative. 

To the sixth interrogatory I reply, that so long as the Slave 
States continue to treat slaves as articles of commerce, the Constitu- 
tion confers power on Congress to pass laws regulating that peculiar 
COMMERCE, and that the protection of Human Rights impera- 
tively demands the interposition of every constitutional means to 
prevent this most inhuman and iniquitous traffic. 

T. Campbell. 

I want to sa}' here that Thompson Campbell was elected to 
Congress on that platform, as the Democratic candidate in the 
Galena District, against Martin P. Sweet. 

Judge Douglas : Give me the date of the letter. 

Mr. Lincoln : The time Campbell ran was in 1850. I 
have not the exact date here. It was some time in 1850 that 
these interrogatories were put and the answer given. Campbell 
was elected to Congress, and served out his term. I think a 
second election came up before he served out his term, and he 
was not re-elected. Whether defeated or not nominated, I do 
not know. [Mr. Campbell was nominated for re-election by the 
Democratic party, by acclamation.] At the end of his term his 
very good friend Judge Douglas got him a high office from 
President Pierce, and sent him off to California. Is not that the 
fact? Just at the end of his term in Congress it appears that 
our mutual friend Judge Douglas got our mutual friend Campbell 



188 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

a good office, and sent him to California upon it. And not only 
so, but on the 27th of last month, when Judge Douglas and 
myself spoke at Freeport in joint discussion, there was his same 
friend Campbell, come all the way from California, to help the 
Judge beat me ; and there was poor Martin P. Sweet standing 
on the platform, trying to help poor me to be elected. That is 
true of one of Judge Douglas's friends. 

So again, in that same race of 1850, there was a Congres- 
sional Convention assembled at Joliet, and it nominated R. S. 
Molony for Congress, and unanimously adopted the following 
resolution : — 

^^ Resolved, That we are uncompromisingly opposed to the 
extension of slavery ; and while we would not make such opposition 
a ground of interference with the interests of the States where it 
exists, yet we moderately but firmly insist that it is the duty of 
Congress to oppose its extension into Territory now free, by all means 
compatible with the obligations of the Constitution, and with good 
faith to our sister States ; that these principles were recognized by the 
Ordinance of 1787, which received the sanction of Thomas Jefferson, 
who is acknowledged by all to be the great oracle and expounder of 
our faith," 

Subsequently the same interrogatories were propounded to 
Dr. Molony which had been addressed to Campbell, as above, 
with the exception of the 6th, respecting the interstate slave 
trade, to which Dr. Molony, the Democratic nominee for 
Congress, replied as follows : — 

I received the written interrogatories this day, and, as you will 
see by the La Salle "Democrat" and Ottawa "Free Trader," I took 
at Peru on the 5th, and at Ottawa on the 7th, the affirmative side of 
interrogatories 1st and 2d ; and in relation to the admission of any 
more Slave States from Free Territory, my position taken at these 
meetings, as correctly reported in said papers, was emphatically and 
distinctly opposed to it. In relation to the admission of any more 
Slave States from Texas, whether I shall go against it or not will 
depend upon the opinion that I may hereafter form of the true 
meaning and nature of the resolutions of annexation. If, by said 
resolutions, the honor and good faith of the nation is pledged to 
admit more Slave States from Texas when she (Texas) may apply for 
the admission of such State, then I should, if in Congress, vote for 
their admission. But if not so pledged and bound by sacred 
contract, then a bill for the admission of more Slave States from 
Texas would never receive my vote. 

To your fourth interrogatory I answer fuost decidedly in the 
affirmative, and for reasons set forth in my reported remarks at 
Ottawa last Monday. 

To your fifth interrogatory I also reply in the affirmative most 
cordially^ and that I will use my utmost exertions to secure the 
nomination and election of a man who will accomplish the objects of 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 189 

said interrogatories. I most cordially approve of the resolutions 
adopted at the union meeting held at Princeton on the 27th Sep- 
tember ult. Yours, etc., R. S. Molony. 

All I have to say in regard to Dr. Molony is, that he was the 
regularly nominated Democratic candidate for Congress in his 
district ; was elected at that time, at the end of his term was 
appointed to a land-office at Danville. (I never heard anything 
of Judge Douglas's instrumentality in this.) He held this office 
a considerable time, and when we were at Freeport the other day, 
there were handbills scattered about notifying the public that 
after our debate was over, R. S. Molony would make a Demo- 
cratic speech in favor of Judge Douglas. That is all I know 
of my own personal knowledge. It is added here to this 
resolution, and truly I believe, that — 

"Among those who participated in the Joliet Convention, and 
who supported its nominee, with his platform as laid down in the 
resolution of the Convention and in his reply as above given, we call 
at random the following names, all of which are recognized at this 
day as leading Democrats : — 

"Cook County, — E. B. Williams, Charles McDonell, Arno Voss, 
Thomas Hoyne, Isaac Cook. 

I reckon we ought to except Cook. 

" F. C. Sherman. 

" Will,— Joel A. Matteson, S. W. Bowen. 

" Kane,— B. F. Hall, G. W. Renwick, A. M. Herrington, 
Elijah Wilcox. 

" McHenry, — W. M. Jackson, Enos W. Smith, Neil Donnelly. 
"La Salle,— John Hise, William Reddick." 

William Reddick ! another one of Judge Douglas's friends 
that stood on the stand with him at Ottawa, at the time the 
Judge says my knees trembled so that I had to be carried away. 
The names are all here : — 

" Du Page, — Nathan Allen. 
" De Kalb,— Z. B. Mayo." 

Here is another set of resolutions which I think are apposite 
to the matter in hand. 

On the 28th of February of the same year, a Democratic 
District Convention was held at Naperville to nominate a candi- 
date for Circuit Judge. Among the delegates were Bowen and 
Kelly, of Will ; Captain Naper, H. H. Cody, Nathan Allen, of 
Du Page ; W. M. Jackson, J. M. Strode, P. W. Piatt, and Enos 
W. Smith, of McHenry ; J. Horsman and others, of Winnebago. 
Colonel Strode presided over the Convention. The following 
resolutions were unanimously adopted, — the first on motion of 
P. W. Piatt, the second on motion of William M. Jackson : — 



190 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

'■'■Resolved^ That this Convention is in favor of the Wilmot 
Proviso, both in Principle and Practice^ and that w^e know of no 
good reason why any person should oppose the largest latitude in 
Pree Soil, Pree Territory and Pree Speech. 

*^ Resolved, That in the opinion of this Convention, the time has 
arrived when all ?nen should be free, whites as well as others," 

Judge Douglas : What is the date of those resolutions? 

Mr. Lincoln : I understand it was in 1850, but I do not 
knoiv it. I do not state a thing and say I know it, when I do 
not. But I have the highest belief that this is so. I know of no 
way to arrive at the conclusion that there is an error in it. I 
mean to put a case no stronger than the truth will allow. But 
what I was going to comment upon is an extract from a news- 
paper in De Kalb County ; and it strikes me as being rather 
singular, I confess, under the circumstances. There is a Judge 
Mayo in that county, who is a candidate for the Legislature, for 
the purpose, if he secures his election, of helping to re-elect 
Judge Douglas. He is the editor of a newspaper [De Kalb 
County "Sentinel "] , and in that paper I find the extract I am 
going to read. It is part of an editorial article in which he was 
electioneering as fiercely as he could for Judge Douglas and 
against me. It was a curious thing, I think, to be in such a 
paper. I will agree to that, and the Judge may make the most 
of it: — 

" Our education has been such that we have ever been rather in 
favor of the equality of^ the blacks; that is, that they should enjoy all the 
privileges of the whites "where they reside. We are aware that this is 
not a very popular doctrine. We have had many a confab with some 
who are now^ strong 'Republicans,' we taking the broad ground of 
equality, and they the opposite ground. 

" We were brought up in a State where blacks were voters, and 
we do not know of any inconvenience resulting from it, though 
perhaps it would not work as well where the blacks are more numer- 
ous. We have no doubt of the right of the whites to guard against 
such an evil, if it is one. Our opinion is that it would be best for 
all concerned to have the colored population in a State by themselves 
[in this I agree with him] ; but if within the jurisdiction of the United 
States, xve say by all mca7is they should have the right to have their 
Senators and Representatives iti Congress, and to vote for President. 
With us 'worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow.' We have 
seen many a 'nigger' that we thought more of than some white men." 

That is one of Judge Douglas's friends. Now, I do not 
want to leave mj^self in an attitude where I can be misrepre- 
sented, so I will say I do not think the Judge is responsible for 
this article ; but he is quite as responsible for it as I would be if 
one of my friends had said it. I think that is fair enough. 

I have here also a set of resolutions passed by a Democratic 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 191 

State Convention in Judge Douglas's own good State of Vermont, 
that I think ought to be good for him too : — 

'■'■Resolved, That liberty is a right inherent and inalienable in man, 
and that herein all 7nen are equal. 

';^^:^^^'' Resolved, That we claim no authority in the Federal Govern- 
ment to abolish slavery in the several States, but we do claim for it 
Constitutional power perpetually to prohibit the introduction of slav- 
ery into territory now free, and abolish it wherever, under the juris- 
diction of Congress, it exists. 

'■'•Resolved, That this power ought immediately to be exercised in 
prohibiting the introduction and existence of slavery in New Mexico 
and California, in abolishing slavery and the slave-trade in the District 
of Columbia, on the high seas, and wherever else, under the Con- 
stitution, it can be reached. 

^'■Resolved, That no more Slave States should be admitted into 
the Federal Union, 

'■'■Resolved, That the Government ought to return to its ancient 
policy, not to extend, nationalize, or encourage, but to limit, localize, 
and discourage slavery." 

At Freeport I answered several interrogatories that had 
been propounded to me by Judge Douglas at the Ottawa meeting. 
The Judge has not yet seen fit to find any fault with the position 
that I took in regard to those seven interrogatories, which were 
certainly broad enough, in all conscience, to cover the entire 
ground. In my answers, which have been printed, and all have 
had the opportunity of seeing, I take the ground that those who 
elect me must expect that I will do nothing which will not be in 
accordance with those answers. I have some right to assert 
that Judge Douglas has no fault to find with them. But he 
chooses to still try to thrust me upon different ground, without 
paying 'any attention to my answers, the obtaining of which from 
me cost him so much trouble and concern. At the same time I 
propounded four interrogatories to him, claiming it as a right 
that he should answer as many interrogatories for me as I did for 
him, and I would reserve myself for a future instalment when I 
got them ready. The Judge, in answering me upon that occa- 
sion, put in what I suppose he intends as answers to all four of 
my interrogatories. The first one of these interrogatories I have 
before me, and it is in these words : — 

*■'■ Question 1. If the people of Kansas shall, by means entirely 
unobjectionable in all other respects, adopt a State constitution, and 
ask admission into the Union under it, before they have the requisite 
number of inhabitants according to the English bill, — some ninety- 
three thousand, — will you vote to admit them?" 

As I read the Judge's answer in the newspaper, and as I 
remember it as pronounced at the time, he does not give any 
answer which is equivalent to yes or no, — I will or I wont. He 



192 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

answers at very considerable length, rather quarreling with me 
for asking the question, and insisting that Judge Trumbull had 
done something that I ought to say something about, and finally 
getting out such statements as induce me to infer that he means 
to be understood he will, in that supposed case, vote for the 
admission of Kansas. I only bring this forward now for the 
purpose of saying that if he chooses to put a different construc- 
tion upon his answer, he may do it. But if he does not, I shall 
from this time forward assume that he will vote for the admission 
of Kansas in disregard of the English bill. He has the right to 
remove any misunderstanding I may have. I only mention it 
now, that I may hereafter assume this to be the true construction 
of his answer, if he does not now choose to correct me. 

The second interrogatory that I propounded to him was 
this : — 

'■'■ Question 2. Can the people of a United States Territory, in 
any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, 
exclude slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a State Con- 
stitution?" 

To this Judge Douglas answered that they can lawfully 
exclude slavery from the Territory prior to the formation of a 
Constitution. He goes on to tell us how it can be done. As I 
understand him, he holds that it can be done by the Territorial 
Legislature refusing to make any enactments for the protection 
of slavery in the Territory, and especially by adopting unfriendly 
legislation to it. For the sake of clearness, I state it again : that 
they can exclude slavery from the Territory, 1st, by withholding 
what he assumes to be an indispensable assistance to it in the 
way of legislation; and, 2d, by unfriendly legislation. If I 
rightly understand him, I wish to ask your attention for a while 
to his position. 

In the first place, the Supreme Court of the United States 
has decided that any Congressional prohibition of slavery in the 
Territories is unconstitutional ; that they have reached this 
proposition as a conclusion from their former proposition, that the 
Constitution of the United States expressly recognizes propert}'- 
in slaves, and from that other Constitutional provision, that no 
person shall be deprived of property without due process of law. 
Hence they reach the conclusion that as the Constitution of the 
United States expressly recognizes property in slaves, and pro- 
hibits any person from being deprived of property without due 
process of law, to pass an Act of Congress by which a man who 
owned a slave on one side of a line would be deprived of him if 
he took him on the other side, is depriving him of that property 
without due process of law. That I understand to be the decision 
of the Supreme Court. ^ I understand also that Judge Douglas 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 193 

adheres most firmly to that decision ; and the difficulty is, how is 
it possible for any power to exclude slavery from the Territory, 
unless in violation of that decision? That is the difficulty. 

In the Senate of the United States, in 1850, Judge Trumbull, 
in a speech substantially, if not directly, put the same interroga- 
tory to Judge Douglas, as to whether the people of a Territory 
had the lawful power to exclude slavery prior to the formation 
of a constitution. Judge Douglas then answered at considerable 
length, and his answer will be found in the "Congressional 
Globe," under date of June 9th, 1856. The Judge said that 
whether the people could exclude slavery prior to the formation 
of a constitution or not was a question to be decided by the Supreme 
Court. He put that proposition, as will be seen by the " Con- 
gressional Globe," in a variety of forms, all running to the same 
thing in substance, — that it was a question for the Supreme 
Court. I maintain that when he says, after the Supreme Court 
have decided the question, that the people may yet exclude 
slavery by any means whatever, he does virtually say that it is 
not a question for the Supreme Court. He shifts his ground. I 
appeal to you whether he did not say it was a question for the 
Supreme Court? Has not the Supreme Court decided that 
question? When he now says the people may exclude slavery, 
does he not make it a question for the people? Does he not 
virtually shift his ground and say that it is not a question for the 
court, but for the people? This is a very simple proposition, — a 
very plain and naked one. It seems to me that there is no 
difficulty in deciding it. In a variety of ways he said that it was a 
question for the Supreme Court. He did not stop then to tell us 
that whatever the Supreme Court decides, the people can by 
withholding necessary " police regulations " keep slavery out. 
He did not make any such answer. I submit to you now whether 
the new state of the case has not induced the Judge to sheer 
away from his original ground. Would not this be the impression 
of every fair-minded man? 

I hold that the proposition that slavery cannot enter a new 
country without police regulations is historically false. It is not 
true at all. I hold that the history of this country shows that 
the institution of slavery was originally planted upon this conti- 
nent ivithotit these " police regulations " which the Judge now 
thinks necessary for the actual establishment of it. Not only so, 
but is there not another fact : how came this Dred Scott decision 
to be made? It was made upon the case of a negro being taken 
and actually held in slavery in Minnesota Territory, claiming his 
freedom because the Act of Congress prohibited his being so 
held there. Will the yudge -pretend that Dred Scott was not held 
there without -police regulations? There is at least one matter of 
record as to his having been held in slavery in the Territory, not 

26 



194 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

only without police regulations, but in the teeth of Congressional 
legislation supposed to be valid at the time. This shows that 
there is vigor enough in slavery to plant itself in a new country 
even against unfriendly legislation. It takes not only law, but 
the enforcement of law to keep it out. That is the history of 
this country upon the subject. 

I wish to ask one other question. It being understood that 
the Constitution of the United States guarantees property in 
slaves in the Territories, if there is any infringement of the right 
of that property, would not the United States courts, organized 
for the government of the Territory, apply such remedy as might 
be necessary in that case? It is a maxim held by the courts that 
there is no wrong without its remedy ; and the courts have a 
remedy for whatever is acknowledged and treated as a wrong. 

Again: I will ask you, my friends, if you were elected 
members of the Legislature, what would be the first thing you 
would have to do before entering upon your duties? Swear to 
su^-port the Constitution of the United States. Suppose you 
believe, as Judge Douglas does, that the Constitution of the 
United States guarantees to your neighbor the right to hold slaves 
in that Territory ; that they are his property : how can you clear 
your oaths unless you give him such legislation as is necessary 
to enable him to enjoy that property? What do you understand 
by supporting the Constitution of a State, or of the United States? 
Is it not to give such constitutional helps to the rights established 
by that Constitution as may be practically needed? Can you, if 
you swear to support the Constitution, and believe that the Con- 
stitution establishes a right, clear your oath, without giving it 
support? Do you support the Constitution if, knowing or believ- 
ing there is a right established under it which needs specific 
legislation, you withhold that legislation ? Do you not violate 
and disregard your oath? I can conceive of nothing plainer in 
the world. There can be nothing in the words "support the 
Constitution," if you may run counter to it by refusing support to 
any right established under the Constitution. And what I say 
here will hold with still more force against the Judge's doctrine 
of " unfriendly legislation." How could you, having sworn to 
support the Constitution, and believing it guaranteed the right to 
hold slaves in the Territories, assist in legislation intended to 
defeat that right} That would be violating your own view of 
the Constitution. Not only so, but if you were to do so, how 
long would it take the courts to hold your votes unconstitutional 
and void? Not a moment. 

Lastly, I would ask : Is not Congress itself under obliga- 
tion to give legislative support to any right that is established 
under the United States Constitution ? I repeat the question : Is 
not Congress itself bound to give legislative support to any right 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 195 

that is established in the United States Constitution? A member 
of Congress swears to support the Constitution of the United 
States ; and if he sees a right established by that Constitution 
which needs specific legislative protection, can he clear his oath 
without giving that protection ? Let me ask you why many of 
us who are opposed to slavery upon principle give our acquies- 
cence to a Fugitive Slave law? Why do we hold ourselves 
under obligations to pass such a law, and abide by it when it is 
passed? Because the Constitution makes provision that the 
owners of slaves shall have the right to reclaim them. It gives 
the right to reclaim slaves ; and that right is, as Judge Douglas 
says, a barren right, unless there is legislation that will 
enforce it. 

The mere declaration, "No person held to service or labor 
in one State under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall 
in consequence of any law or regulation therein be discharged 
from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of 
the party to whom such service or labor may be due," is power- 
less without specific legislation to enforce it. Now, on what 
ground would a member of Congress who is opposed to slavery 
in the abstract, vote for a Fugitive law, as I would deem it 
my duty to do? Because there is a constitutional right which 
needs legislation to enforce it. And although it is distasteful to 
me, I have sworn to support the Constitution ; and having so 
sworn, I cannot conceive that I do support it if I withhold from 
that right any necessary legislation to make it practical. And 
if that is true in regard to a Fugitive Slave law, is the right to 
have fugitive slaves reclaimed any better fixed in the Constitu- 
tion than the right to hold slaves in the Territories? For this 
decision is a just exposition of the Constitution, as Judge Douglas 
thinks. Is the one right any better than the other? Is there 
any man who, while a member of Congress, would give support 
to the one any more than the other? If I wished to refuse to 
give legislative support to slave property in the Territories, if a 
member of Congress, I could not do it, holding the view that 
the Constitution establishes that right. If I did it at all, it would 
be because I deny that this decision properly construes the 
Constitution. But if I acknowledge, with Judge Douglas, that 
this decision properly construes the Constitution, I cannot 
conceive that I would be less than a perjured man if I should 
refuse in Congress to give such protection to that property as in 
its nature it needed. 

At the end of what I have said here I propose to give the 
Judge my fifth interrogatory, which he may take and answer at 
his leisure. My fifth interrogatory is this : 

If the slaveholding citizens of a United States Territory 
should need and demand Congressional legislation for the pro- 



196 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

tection of their slave property in such Territory, would you, as a 
member of Congress, vote for or against such legislation? 

Judge Douglas : Will you repeat that? I want to answer 
that question. 

Mr. Lincoln: If the slaveholding citizens of a United States 
Territory should need and demand Congressional legislation for 
the protection of their slave property in such Territory, would 
you, as a member of Congress, vote for or against such legisla- 
tion? 

I am aware that in some of the speeches Judge Douglas has 
made, he has spoken as if he did not know or think that the 
Supreme Court had decided that a Territorial legislature cannot 
exclude slaver}^ Precisely what the Judge would say upon the sub- 
ject — whether he would say definitely that he does not understand 
they have so decided, or whether he would say he does under- 
stand that the court have so decided, — I do not know; but I 
know that in his speech at Springfield he spoke of it as a thing 
they had not decided yet ; and in his answer to me at Freeport, 
he spoke of it, so far, again, as I can comprehend it, as a thing 
that had not yet been decided. Now, I hold that if the Judge 
does entertain that view, I think that he is not mistaken in so far 
as it can be said that the court has not decided anj^^thing save the 
mere question of jurisdiction. I know the legal arguments that 
can be made, — that after a court has decided that it cannot take 
jurisdiction in a case, it then has decided all that is before it, and 
that is the end of it. A plausible argument can be made in 
favor of that proposition ; but I know that Judge Douglas has 
said in one of his speeches that the court went forward, like 
honest men as they zuere, and decided all the points in the case. 
If any points are really extra-judicially decided because not 
necessarily before them, then this one as to the power of the 
Territorial legislature to exclude slaver}'- is one of them, as also 
the one that the Missouri Compromise was null and void. They 
are both extra-judicial, or neither is, according as the court held 
that they had no jurisdiction in the case between the parties, 
because of want of capacity of one part}^ to maintain a suit in 
that court. I want, if I have sufficient time, to show that the 
court did fass its opinion; but that is the only thing actually 
done in the case. If they did not decide, they showed what they 
were ready to decide whenever the matter was before them. 
What is that opinion? After having argued that Congress had 
no power to pass a law excluding slavery from a United States 
Territory, they then used language to this effect : That inas- 
much as Congress itself could not exercise such a power, it 
followed as a matter of course that it could not authorize a Terri- 
torial government to exercise it ; for the Territorial legislature 
can do no more than Congress could do. Thus it expressed its 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 197 

opinion emphatically against the power of a Territorial legisla- 
ture to exclude slavery, leaving us in just as little doubt on that 
point as upon any other point they really decided. 

Now, my fellow-citizens, I will detain j^ou only a little while 
longer ; my time is nearly out. I find a report of a speech made 
by Judge Douglas at Joliet, since we last met at Freeport, — pub- 
lished, I believe, in the "Missouri Republican," — on the 9th 
of this month, in which Judge Douglas says : 

" You know at Ottawa I read this platform, and asked him if he 
concurred in each and all of the principles set forth in it. He would 
not answer these questions. At last I said frankly, I wish you to 
answer them, because when I get them up here where the color of your 
principles are a little darker than in Egypt, I intend to trot you down 
to Jonesboro. The very notice that I was going to take him down to 
Egypt made him tremble in his knees so that he had to be carried 
from the platform. He laid up seven days, and in the meantime held 
a consultation with his political physicians ; they had Lovejoy and 
Farnsworth and all the leaders of the Abolition party, they consulted 
it all over, and at last Lincoln came to the conclusion that he would 
answer, so he came up to Freeport last Friday." 

Now, that statement altogether furnishes a subject for philo- 
sophical contemplation. I have been treating it in that way, and 
I have really come to the conclusion that I can explain it in no 
other way than by believing the Judge is crazy. If he was in 
his right mind, I cannot conceive how he would have risked dis- 
gusting the four or five thousand of his own friends who stood 
there, and knew, as to my having been carried from the plat- 
form, that there was not a word of truth in it. 

Judge Douglas : Didn't they carry you off ? 

Mr. Lincoln : There ! that question illustrates the charac- 
ter of this man Douglas exactly. He smiles now, and says, 
"Didn't they carry you off?" but he said then, '^ he had to be 
carried of; " and he said it to convince the country that he had 
so completely broken me down by his speech that I had to be 
carried away. Now he seeks to dodge it, and asks, "Didn't 
they carry you off?" Yes, they did. But, Judge Douglas, 
-why didn't you tell the truth .?" I would like to know why you 
didn't tell the truth about it. And then again, "He laid up 
seven days." He put this in print for the people of the country 
to read as a serious document. I think if he had been in his 
sober senses he would not have risked that barefacedness in the 
presence of thousands of his own friends, who knew that I made 
speeches within six of the seven days at Henry, Marshall County, 
Augusta, Hancock County, and Macomb, McDonough County, 
including all the necessary travel to meet him again at Freeport 
at the end of the six days. Now, I say there is no charitable way 
to look at that statement, except to conclude that he is actually 



198 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

crazy. There is another thing in that statement that alarmed me 
very greatly as he states it, that he was going to " trot me down 
to Egypt." Thereby he would have you to infer that I would 
not come to Egypt unless he forced me, — that I could not be got 
here, unless he, giant-like, had hauled me down here. That 
statement he makes, too, in the teeth of the knowledge that I 
had made the stipulation to come down here, and that he him- 
self had been very reluctant to enter into the stipulation. More 
than all this. Judge Douglas, when he made that statement, must 
have been crazy, and wholly out of his sober senses, or else he 
would have known that when he got me down here, that promise 
— that windy promise — of his powers to annihilate me, wouldn't 
amount to anything. Now, how little do I look like being 
carried away trembling? Let the Judge go on ; and after he is 
done with his half hour, I want you all, if I can't go home myself, 
to let me stay and rot here ; and if anything happens to the Judge, 
if I cannot carry him to the hotel and put him to bed, let 
me stay here and rot. I say, then, here is something extraordi- 
nary in this statement. I ask you if you know any other 
living man who would make such a statement? I will ask 
my friend Casey, over there, if he would do such a thing? 
Would he send that out, and have his men take it as the truth? 
Did the Judge talk of trotting me down to Egypt to scare me to 
death? Why, I know this people better than he does. I was 
raised just a litde east of here. I am a part of this people. But 
the Judge was raised further north, and perhaps he has some 
horrid idea of what this people might be induced to do. But really 
I have talked about this matter perhaps longer than I ought, for 
it is no great thing ; and yet the smallest are often the most 
difficult things to deal with. The Judge has set about seriously 
trying to make the impression that when we meet at different 
places I am literally in his clutches, — that I am a poor, helpless, 
decrepit mouse, and that I can do nothing at all. This is one 
of the ways he has taken to create that impression. I don't 
know any other way to meet it, except this. I don't want to 
quarrel with him, — to call him a liar ; but when I come square 
up to him I don't know what else to call him, if I must tell the 
truth out. I want to be at peace, and reserve all my fighting 
powers for necessary occasions. My time, now, is very nearly 
out, and I give up the trifle that is left to the Judge, to let him 
set my knees trembling again, if he can. 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 199 



MR. DOUGLAS'S REPLY. 



My friends, while I am very grateful to you for the enthu- 
siam which you show for me, I will say in all candor, that your 
quietness will be much more agreeable than your applause, inas- 
much as you deprive me of some part of my time whenever you 
cheer. 

I will commence where Mr. Lincoln left oft', and make a 
remark upon this serious complaint of his about my speech at 
Joliet. I did say there in a playful manner that when I put these 
questions to Mr. Lincoln at Ottawa he failed to answer, and that 
he trembled and had to be carried oft' the stand, and required 
seven days to get up his reply. That he did not walk oft' from 
that stand he will not deny. That when the crowd went away 
from the stand with me, a few persons carried him home on their 
shoulders and laid him down, he will admit. I wish to say to 
you that whenever I degrade my friends and myself by allowing 
them to carry me on their backs along through the public streets, 
when I am able to walk, I am willing to be deemed crazy. I 
did not say whether I beat him or he beat me in the argument. 
It is true I put these questions to him, and I put them, not as 
mere idle questions, but showed that I based them upon the creed 
of the Black Republican party as declared by their conventions 
in that portion of the State which he depends upon to elect him, 
and desired to know whether he indorsed that creed. He would 
not answer. When I reminded him that I intended brinofinir 
him into Egypt and renewing my questions if he refused to 
answer, he then consulted, and did get up his answers one week 
after, — answers v/hich I may refer to in a few minutes, and show 
you how equivocal they are. My object was to make him avow 
whether or not he stood by the platform of his party ; the resolu- 
tions I then read, and upon which I based my questions, had 
been adopted by his party in the Galena Congressional District, 
and the Chicago and Bloomington Congressional Districts, com- 
posing a large majority of the counties in this State that give 
Republican or Abolition majorities. Mr. Lincoln cannot and 
will not deny that the doctrines laid down in these resolutions 
were in substance put forth in Lovejoy's resolutions, which were 
voted for by a majority of his party, some of them, if not all, 
receiving the support of every man of his party. Hence, I laid 
a foundation for my questions to him before I asked him whether 
that was or was not the platform of his party. He says that he 
answered my questions. One of them was whether he would 
vote to admit any more Slave States into the Union. The creed 
of the Republican party as set forth in the resolutions of their 
various conventions was, that they would under no circumstances 



200 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

vote to admit another Slave State. It was put forth in the 
Lovejoy resolutions in the Legislature ; it was put forth and 
passed in a majority of all the counties of this State which give 
Abolition or Republican majorities, or elect members to the 
Legislature of that school of politics. I had a right to know 
whether he would vote for or against the admission of another 
Slave State, in the event the people wanted it. He first 
answered that he was not pledged on the subject, and then 
said : — 

" In regard to the other question, of which I am pledged to the 
admission of any more Slave States into the Union, I state to you 
very frankly that I would be exceedingly sorry ever to be put in the 
position of having to pass on that question. I should be exceedingly 
glad to know that there would never be another Slave State admitted 
into the Union ; but I must add that if slavery shall be kept out of the 
Territories during the Territorial existence of any one given Territory, 
and then the people, having a fair chance and clean field when they 
come to adopt a Constitution, do such an extraordinary thing as 
adopt a slave constitution, uninfluenced by the actual presence of the 
institution among them, I see no alternative, if we own the country, 
but to admit them into the Union." 

Now analyze that answer. In the first place, he says he 
would be exceedingly sorry to be put in a position where he 
would have to vote on the question of the admission of a Slave 
State. Why is he a candidate for the Senate if he would be 
sorry to be put in that position? I trust the people of Illinois 
will not put him in a position which he would be so sorry to 
occupy. The next position he takes is that he would be glad to 
know that there would never be another Slave State, yet, in 
certain contingencies, he might have to vote for one. What is 
that contingency? " If Congress keeps slavery out by law while 
it is a Territory, and then the people should have a fair chance 
and should adopt slavery, uninfluenced by the presence of the 
institution," he supposed he would have to admit the State. 
Suppose Congress should not keep slavery out during their 
Territorial existence, then how would he vote when the people 
applied for admission into the Union with a slave constitution? 
That he does not answer ; and that is the condition of every 
Territory we have now got. Slavery is not kept out of Kansas 
by Act of Congress ; and when I put the question to Mr. Lincoln, 
whether he will vote for the admission with or without slavery, 
as her people may desire, he will not answer, and you have not 
an answer from him. In Nebraska, slavery is not prohibited by 
Act of Congress, but the people are allowed, under the Nebraska 
bill, to do as they please on the subject ; and when I ask him 
whether he will vote to admit Nebraska with a slave constitution 
if her people desire it, he will not answer. So with New 



AND STEniEN A. DOUGLAS. 201 

Mexico, Washington Territory, Arizona, and the four new States 
to be admitted from Texas. You cannot get an answer from 
him to these questions. His answer only appHes to a given 
case, to a condition, — things which he knows do not exist in any 
one Territory in the Union. He tries to give you to understand 
that he would allow the people to do as they please, and yet he 
dodges the question as to every Terrritory in the Union. I now 
ask why cannot Mr. Lincoln answer to each of these Territories? 
He has not done it, and he will not do it. The Abolitionists up 
north understand that this answer is made with a view of not 
committing himself on any one Territory now in existence. It 
is so understood there, and you cannot expect an answer from 
him on a case that applies to any one Territory, or applies to the 
new States which by compact we are pledged to admit out of 
Texas, when they have the requisite population and desire 
admission. I submit to you whether he has made a frank 
answer, so that you can tell how he would vote in any one of 
these cases. " He would be sorry to be put in the position." 
Why would he be sorry to be put in this position if his duty 
required him to give the vote? If the people of a Territory 
ought to be permitted to come into the Union as a State, with 
slavery or without it, as they pleased, why not give the vote 
admitting them cheerfully? If in his opinion they ought not to 
come in with slavery, even if they wanted to, why not say that 
he would cheerfully vote against their admission? His intima- 
tion is that conscience would not let him vote " No," and he 
would be sorry to do that which his conscience would compel 
him to do as an honest man. 

In regard to the contract, or bargain, between Trumbull, the 
Abolitionists, and him, which he denies, I wish to say that the 
charge can be proved by notorious historical facts. Trumbull, 
Lovejoy, Giddings, Fred Douglass, Hale and Banks were 
traveling the State at that time making speeches on the same 
side and in the same cause with him. He contents himself with 
the simple denial that no such thing occurred. Does he deny 
that he, and Trumbull, and Breese, and Giddings, and Chase, 
and Fred Douglass, and Lovejoy, and all those Abolitionists and 
deserters from the Democratic party did make speeches all over 
this State in the same common cause? Does he deny that Jim 
Matheny was then, and is now, his confidential friend, and does 
he deny that Matheny made the charge of the bargain and fraud 
in his own language, as I have read it from his printed speech? 
Matheny spoke of his own personal knowledge of that bargain 
existing between Lincoln, Trumbull, and the Abolitionists. He 
still remains Lincoln's confidential friend, and is now a candidate 
for Congress, and is canvassing the Springfield District for 
Lincoln, I assert that I can prove the charge to be true in 

27 



202 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

detail if I can ever get it where I can summon and compel the 
attendance of witnesses. I have the statement of another man 
to the same effect as that made by Matheny, which I am not 
permitted to use yet ; but Jim Matheny is a good witness on 
that point, and the history of the country is conclusive upon it. 
That Lincoln up to that time had been a Whig, and then under- 
took to Abolitionize the Whigs and bring them into the Abolition 
camp, is beyond denial ; that Trumbull up to that time had been 
a Democrat, and deserted, and undertook to Abolitionize the 
Democracy, and take them into the Abolition camp, is beyond 
denial ; that they are both now active, leading, distinguished 
members of this Abolition Republican party, in full communion, 
is a fact that cannot be questioned or denied. 

But Lincoln is not willing to be responsible for the creed of 
his party. He complains because I hold him responsible ; and in 
order to avoid the issue, he attempts to show that individuals in 
the Democratic party, many years ago, expressed Abolition 
sentiments. It is true that Tom Campbell, when a candidate 
for Congress in 1850, published the letter which Lincoln read. 
When I asked Lincoln for the date of that letter, he could not 
give it. The date of the letter has been suppressed b)'- other 
speakers who have used it, though I take it for granted that 
Lincoln did not know the date. If he will take the trouble to 
examine, he will find that the letter was published only two days 
before the election, and was never seen until after it, except in 
one county. Tom Campbell would have been beat to death by 
the Democratic party if that letter had been made public in his 
district. As to Molony, it is true he uttered sentiments of the 
kind referred to by Mr. Lincoln, and the best Democrats would not 
vote for him for that reason. I returned from Washington after 
the passage of the Compromise Measures in 1850, and when I 
found Molony running under Wentworth's tutelage and on his 
platform, I denounced him, and declared that he was no Demo- 
crat. In my speech at Chicago, just before the election that 
year, I went before the infuriated people of that city and 
vindicated the Compromise Measures of 1850. Remember the 
city council had passed resolutions nullifying Acts of Congress 
and instructing the police to withhold their assistance from the 
execution of the laws ; and as I was the only man in the city 
of Chicago who was responsible for the passage of the Compro- 
mise Measures, I went before the crowd, justified each and every 
one of those measures ; and let it be said, to the eternal honor 
of the people of Chicago, that when they were convinced by my 
exposition of those measures that they were right, and they had 
done wrong in opposing them, they repealed their nullifying 
resolutions, and declared that they would acquiesce in and 
support the laws of the land. These facts are well known, and 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 203 

Mr. Lincoln can only get up individual instances, dating back 
to 1849-50, which are contradicted by the whole tenor of the 
Democratic creed. 

But Mr. Lincoln does not want to be held responsible for the 
Black Republican doctrine of no more Slave States. Farnsworth 
is the candidate of his party to-day in the Chicago District, and 
he made a speech in the last Congress in which he called upon 
God to palsy his right arm if he ever voted for the admission of 
another Slave State, whether the people wanted it or not. Lovejoy 
is making speeches all over the State for Lincoln now, and taking 
ground against any more Slave States. Washburne, the Black 
Republican candidate for Congress in the Galena District, is 
making speeches in favor of this same Abolition-platform declaring 
no more Slave States. Why are men running for Congress in the 
northern districts, and taking that Abolition platform for their 
guide, when Mr. Lincoln does not want to be held to it down here 
in Egypt and in the centre of the State, and objects to it so as to 
get votes here? Let me tell Mr. Lincoln that his party in the 
northern part of the State hold to that Abolition platform, and 
that if they do not in the south and in the centre, they present 
the extraordinary spectacle of a " house divided against itself,' 
and hence "cannot stand." I now bring down upon him the' 
vengeance of his own scriptural quotation, and give it a more 
appropriate application than he did, when I say to him that his 
party. Abolition in one end of the State, and opposed to it in 
the other, is a house divided against itself, and cannot stand, 
and ought not to stand, for it attempts to cheat the American 
people out of their votes by disguising its sentiments. 

Mr. Lincoln attempts to cover up and get over his Aboli- 
tionism by telling you that he was raised a little east of you, be- 
yond the Wabash in Indiana, and he thinks that makes a mighty 
sound and good man of him on all these questions. I do not 
know that the place where a man is born or raised has much to 
do with his political principles. The worst Abolitionists I have 
ever known in Illinois have been men who have sold their slaves 
in Alabama and Kentucky, and have come here and turned 
Abolitionists whilst spending the money got for the negroes they 
sold ; and I do not know that an Abolitionist from Indiana or 
Kentucky ought to have any more credit because he was born 
and raised among slaveholders. I do not know that a native of 
Kentucky is more excusable because, raised among slaves, his 
father and mother having owned slaves, he comes to Illinois, 
turns Abolitionist, and slanders the graves of his father and 
mother, and breathes curses upon the institutions under which 
he was born, and his father and mother bred. True, I was not 
born out west here. I was born away down in Yankee land, I 
was born in a valley in Vermont, with the high mountains around 



204 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

me. I love the old green mountains and valleys of Vermont, 
where I was born, and where I played in my childhood. I went 
up to visit them some seven or eight years ago, for the first 
time for twenty odd years. When I got there they treated me 
very kindly. They invited me to the Commencement of their 
college, placed me on the seats with their distinguished guests, 
and conferred upon me the degree of LL. D., in Latin (doctor of 
laws) , — the same as they did old Hickory, at Cambridge, many 
years ago ; and I give you my word and honor I understood just 
as much of the Latin as he did. When they got through confer- 
ring the honorary degree, they called upon me for a speech ; and 
I got up, with my heart full and swelling with gratitude for their 
kindness, and I said to them, "My friends, Vermont is the most 
glorious spot on the face of this globe for a man to be born in, 
■provided he emigrates when he is very young." 

I emigrated when I was very young. I came out here when 
I was a boy, and I found my mind liberalized, and my opinions 
enlarged, when I got on these broad prairies, with only the 
heavens to bound my vision, instead of having them circum- 
scribed by the little narrow ridges that surrounded the valley 
where I was born. But I discard all flings of the land where a 
man was born, I wish to be judged by my principles, by those 
great public measures and constitutional principles upon which 
the peace, the happiness, and the perpetuity of this Republic now 
rest. 

Mr. Lincoln has framed another question, propounded it to 
me, and desired my answer. As I have said before, I did not 
put a question to him that I did not first lay a foundation for by 
showing that it was a part of the platform of the party whose 
votes he is now seeking, adopted in a majority of the counties 
where he now hopes to get a majority, and supported by the 
candidates of his party now running in those counties. But I 
will answer his question. It is as follows : " If the slaveholding 
citizens of a United States Territory should need and demand 
Congressional legislation for the protection of their slave property 
in such Territory, would you, as a member of Congress, vote for 
or against such legislation?" I answer him that it is a funda- 
mental article in the Democratic creed that there should be non- 
interference and non-intervention by Congress with slavery in 
the States or Territories. Mr. Lincoln could have found an 
answer to his question in the Cincinnati platform, if he had de- 
sired it. The Democratic party have always stood by that great 
principle of non-interference and non-intervention by Congress 
with slavery in the States and Territories alike, and I stand on 
that platform now. 

Now, I desire to call your attention to the fact that Lincoln 
did not define his own position in his own question. How does 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 205 

he Stand on that question? He put the question to me at Free- 
port whether or not I would vote to admit Kansas into the Union 
before she had 93,420 inhabitants. I answered him at once that, 
it having been decided that Kansas had now population enough 
for a Slave State, she had population enough for a Free State. 

I answered the question unequivocally ; and then I asked 
him whether he would vote for or against the admission of Kan- 
sas before she had 93,420 inhabitants, and he would not answer 
me. To-day he has called attention to the fact that, in his opin- 
ion, my answer on that question was not quite plain enough, and 
yet he has not answered it himself. He now puts a question in 
relation to Congressional interference in the Territories to me. 
I answer him direct, and yet he has not answered the question 
himself. I ask you whether a man has any right, in common 
decency, to put questions in these public discussions, to his 
opponent, which he will not answer himself, when they are 
pressed home to him. I have asked him three times whether he 
would vote to admit Kansas whenever the people applied with a 
constitution of their own making and their own adoption, under 
circumstances that were fair, just, and unexceptionable ; but I can- 
not get an answer from him. Nor will he answer the question 
which he put to me, and which I have just answered in relation to 
Congressional interference in the Territories, by making a slave 
code there. 

It is true that he goes on to answer the question by arguing 
that under the decision of the Supreme Court it is the duty of a 
man to vote for a slave code in the Territories. He says that 
it is his duty, under the decision that the court has made ; and if 
he believes in that decision he would be a perjured man if he did 
not give the vote. I want to know whether he is not bound to a 
decision which is contrary to his opinions just as much as to one 
in accordance with his opinions. If the decision of the Supreme 
Court, the tribunal created by the Constitution to decide the 
question, is final and binding, is he not bound by it just as strongly 
as if he was for it instead of against it originally? Is every man 
in this land allowed to resist decisions he does not like, and only 
support those that meet his approval ? What are important courts 
worth, unless their decisions are binding on all good citizens? 
It is the fundamental principle of the judiciary that its decisions 
are final. It is created for that purpose ; so that when you can- 
not agree among yourselves on a disputed point, you appeal to 
the judicial tribunal, which steps in and decides for you ; and 
that decision is then binding on every good citizen. It is the 
law of the land just as much with Mr. Lincoln against it as for 
it. And yet he says if that decision is binding, he is a perjured 
man if he does not vote for a slave code in the different Territo- 
ries of this Union. Well, if you [turning to Mr. Lincoln] are not 



206 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

going to resist the decision, if you obey it, and do not intend to 
array mob law against the constituted authorities, then, according 
to your own statement, you will be a perjured man if you do not 
vote to establish slavery in these Territories. My doctrine is, 
that even taking Mr. Lincoln's view that the decision recognizes 
the right of a man to carry his slaves into the Territories of the 
United States if he pleases, yet after he gets there he needs affirm- 
ative law to make that right of any value. The same doctrine 
not only applies to slave property, but all other kinds of property. 
Chief Justice Taney places it upon the ground that slave property 
is on an equal footing with other property. Suppose one of your 
merchants should move to Kansas and open a liquor store : 
he has a right to take groceries and liquors there ; but the mode 
of selling them, and the circumstances under which they shall be 
sold, and all the remedies, must be prescribed by local legis- 
lation ; and if that is unfriendly, it will drive him out just as 
effectually as if there was a constitutional provision against the 
sale of liquor. So the absence of local legislation to encourage 
and support slave property in a Territory excludes it practically 
just as effectually as if there was a positive constitutional provi- 
sion against it. Hence, I assert that under the Dred Scott deci- 
sion you cannot maintain slavery a day in a Territory where there 
is an unwilling people and unfriendly legislation. If the people 
are opposed to it, our right is a barren, worthless, useless right ; 
and if they are for it, they will support and encourage it. We 
come right back, therefore, to the practical question, — If the 
people of a Territory want slavery, they will have it ; and if 
they do not want it, you cannot force it on them. And this is 
the practical question, the great principle, upon which our in- 
stitutions rest. I am willing to take the decision of the Supreme 
Court as it was pronounced by that august tribunal, without stop- 
ping to inquire whether I would have decided that way or not. 
I have had many a decision made against me on questions of law 
which I did not like, but I was bound by them just as much as if 
I had had a hand in making them and approved them. Did you 
ever see a lawyer or a client lose his case that he approved the 
decision of the court? They always think the decision unjust 
when it is given against them. In a government of laws, like 
ours, we must sustain the Constitution as our fathers made it, 
and maintain the rights of the States as the}'^ are guaranteed 
under the Constitution ; and then we will have peace and har- 
mony between the different States and sections of this glorious 
Union. 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 207 

FOURTH JOINT DEBATE, AT CHARLESTON. 

September 18, 1858. 
MR. LINCOLN'S SPEECH. 

Ladies and Gentlemen : It will be very difficult for an 
audience so large as this to hear distinctly what a speaker says, 
and consequently it is important that as profound silence be pre- 
served as possible. 

While I was at the hotel to-day, an elderly gentleman called 
upon me to know whether I was really in favor of producing a 
perfect equality between the negroes and white people. While 
I had not proposed to mj^self on this occasion to say much on 
that subject, yet as the question was asked me, I thought I would 
occupy perhaps five minutes in saying something in regard to it. 
will sa}'-, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of 
bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the 
white and black races ; that I am not, nor ever have been, in 
favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying 
them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people ; and I will 
say, in addition to this, that there is a physical difference between 
the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the 
two races living together on terms of social and political equality. 
And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain 
together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and 
I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior 
position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I 
do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior 
position the negro should be denied everything. I do not under- 
stand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I 
must necessarily want her for a wife. My understanding is that 
I can iust let her alone. I am now in my fiftieth year, and I 
certainly never have had a black woman for either a slave or a 
wife. So it seems to me quite possible for us to get along without 
making either slaves or wives of negroes. I will add to this that 
I have never seen, to my knowledge, a man, woman, or child 
who was in favor of producing a perfect equality, social and 
political, between negroes and white men. I recollect of but one 
distinguished instance that I ever heard of so frequently as to be 
entirely satisfied of its correctness, and that is the case of Judge 
Douglas's old friend Colonel Richard M. Johnson. I will also 
add to the remarks I have made (for I am not going to enter at 
large upon this subject) , that I have never had the least appre- 
hension that I or my friends would marry negroes if there was 
no law to keep them from it ; but as Judge Douglas and his 



208 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

friends seem to be in great apprehension that they might, if there 
were no law to keep them from it, I give him the most solemn 
pledge that I will to the very last stand by the law of this State, 
which forbids the marrying of white people with negroes. I will 
add one further word, which is this: that I do not understand 
that there is any place where an alteration of the social and 
political relations of the negro and the white man can be made, 
except in the State Legislature, — not in the Congress of the 
United States ; and as I do not really apprehend the approach of 
any such thing myself, and as Judge Douglas seems to be in 
constant horror that some such danger is rapidly approaching, 
I propose as the best means to prevent it that the Judge be kept 
at home, and placed in the State Legislature to fight the 
measure. I do not propose dwelling longer at this time on this 
subject. 

When Judge Trumbull, our other Senator in Congress, 
returned to Illinois in the month of August, he made a speech 
at Chicago, in which he made what may be called a charge against 
Judge Douglas, which I understand proved to be very oflTensive 
to him. The Judge was at that time out upon one of his speaking 
tours through the country, and when the news of it reached him, 
as I am informed, he denounced Judge Trumbull in rather harsh 
terms for having said what he did in regard to that matter. I 
was traveling at that time, and speaking at the same places with 
Judge Douglas on subsequent days ; and when I heard of what 
Judge Trumbull had said of Douglas, and what Douglas had 
said back again, I felt that I was in a position where I could not 
remain entirely silent in regard to the matter. Consequently, upon 
two or three occasions I alluded to it, and alluded to it in no other 
wise than to say that in regard to the charge brought by Trumbull 
against Douglas, I personally knew nothing, and sought to say 
nothing about it ; that I did personally know Judge Trumbull ; that 
I believed him to be a man of veracity ; that I believed him to be 
a man of capacity sufficient to know very well whether an 
assertion he was making, as a conclusion drawn from a set of 
facts, was true or false ; and as a conclusion of my own from 
that, I stated it as my belief, if Trumbull should ever be called 
upon, he would prove everything he had said. I said this upon 
two or three occasions. Upon a subsequent occasion, Judge 
Trumbull spoke again before an audience at Alton, and upon that 
occasion not only repeated his charge against Douglas, but 
arrayed the evidence he relied upon to substantiate it. This 
speech was published at length ; and subsequently at Jacksonville 
Judge Douglas alluded to the matter. In the course of his speech, 
and near the close of it, he stated in regard to myself what I will 
now read : "Judge Douglas proceeded to remark that he should 
not hereafter occupy his time in refuting such charges made by 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 209 

Trumbull, but that Lincoln having indorsed the character of 
Trumbull for veracity, he should hold him (Lincoln) responsible 
for the slanders." I have done simply what I have told you, to 
subject me to this invitation to notice the charge. I now wish to 
say that it had not originally been my purpose to discuss that 
matter at all. But inasmuch as it seems to be the wish of Judge 
Douglas to hold me responsible for it, then for once in my life I 
will play General Jackson, and to the just extent I take the 
responsibility. 

I wish to say at the beginning that I will hand to the reporters 
that portion of Judge Trumbull's Alton speech which was devoted 
to this matter, and also that portion of Judge Douglas's speech 
made at Jacksonville in answer to it. I shall thereby furnish the 
readers of this debate with the complete discussion between 
Trumbull and Douglas. I cannot now read them, for the reason 
that it would take half of my first hour to do so. I can only 
make some comments upon them. Trumbull's charge is in the 
following words : "Now, the charge is, that there was a plot 
entered into to have a Constitution formed for Kansas, and put 
in force, without giving the people an opportunity to vote upon 
it, and that Mr. Douglas was in the plot." I will state, without 
quoting further, for all will have an opportunity of reading it 
hereafter, that Judge Trumbull brings forward what he regards 
as sufficient evidence to substantiate this charge.^ 

It will be perceived Judge Trumbull shows that Senator 
Bigler, upon the floor of the Senate, had declared there had been 
a conference among the senators, in which conference it was 
determined to have an Enabling Act passed for the people of 
Kansas to form a constitution under, and in this conference it 
was agreed among them that it was best not to have a provision 
for submitting the constitution to a vote of the people after it 
should be formed. He then brings forward to show, and show- 
ing, as he deemed, that Judge Douglas reported the bill back to 
the Senate with that clause stricken out. He then shows that 
there was a new clause inserted into the bill, which would 
in its nature -prevent a reference of the constitution back for a 
vote of the people, — if, indeed, upon a mere silence in the law, 
it could be assumed that they had the right to vote upon it. These 
are the general statements that he has made. 

I propose to examine the points in Judge Douglas's speech 
in which he attempts to answer that speech of Judge Trumbull's. 
When you come to examine Judge Douglas's speech, you will 
find that the first point he makes is : " Suppose it were true that 
there was such a change in the bill, and that I struck it out, — is 
that a proof of a plot to force a constitution upon them against 

'See Trumbull's speech at the close of this debate. 
28 



210 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

their will?" His striking out such a provision, if there was such 
a one in the bill, he argues, does not establish the proof that it 
was stricken out for the purpose of robbing the people of that 
right. I would say, in the first place, that that would be a most 
manifest reason for it. It is true, as Judge Douglas states, that 
many Territorial bills have passed without having such a pro- 
vision in them. I believe it is true, though I am not certain, that 
in some instances, constitutions framed under such bills have 
been submitted to a vote of the people, with the law silent upon 
the subject ; but it does not appear that they once had their 
Enabling Acts framed with an express provision for submitting 
the constitution to be framed to a vote of the people, and then 
that they were stricken out when Congress did not mean to alter 
the effect of the law. That there have been bills which never 
had the provision in, I do not question ; but when was that pro- 
vision taken out of one that it was in? More especially does 
this evidence tend to prove the proposition that Trumbull 
advanced, when we remember that the provision was stricken out 
of the bill almost simultaneously with the time that Bigler says 
there was a conference among certain senators, and in which it 
was agreed that a bill should be passed leaving that out. Judge 
Douglas, in answering Trumbull, omits to attend to the testimony 
of Bigler, that there was a meeting in which it was agreed they 
should so frame the bill that there should be no submission of 
the constitution to a vote of the people. The Judge does not 
notice this part of it. If you take this as one piece of evidence, 
and then ascertain that simultaneously Judge Douglas struck out 
a provision that did require it to be submitted, and put the two 
together, I think it will make a pretty fair show of proof that 
Judge Douglas did, as Trumbull says, enter into a plot to put in 
force a constitution for Kansas, without giving the people any 
opportunity of voting upon it. 

But I must hurry on. The next proposition that Judge 
Douglas puts is this : " But upon examination it turns out that 
the Toombs bill never did contain a clause requiring the consti- 
tution to be submitted." This is a mere question of fact, and 
can be determined by evidence. I only want to ask this question : 
Why did not Judge Douglas say that these words were not stricken 
out of the Toombs bill, or this bill from which it is alleged the 
provision was stricken out, — a bill which goes by the name of 
Toombs, because he originally brought it forward ? I ask why, 
if the Judge wanted to make a direct issue with Trumbull, did he 
not take the exact proposition Trumbull made in his speech, and 
say it was not stricken out? Trumbull has given the exact 
words that he says were in the Toombs bill, and he alleges that 
when the bill came back, they were stricken out. Judge Douglas 
does not say that the words which Trumbull says were stricken 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 211 

out were not so stricken out, but he says there was no provision 
in the Toombs bill to submit the constitution to a vote of the 
people. We see at once that he is merely making an issue upon 
the meaning of the words. He has not undertaken to say that 
Trumbull tells a lie about these words being stricken out, but he 
is really, when pushed up to it, only taking an issue upon the 
meaning of the words. Now, then, if there be any issue upon 
the meaning of the words, or if there be upon the questi on of 
fact as to whether these words were stricken out, I have before 
me what I suppose to be a genuine copy of the Toombs hill, in 
which it can be shown that the words Trumbull says were in it 
were, in fact, originally there. If there be any dispute upon the 
fact, I have got the documents here to show they were there. If 
there be any controversy upon the sense of the words, — whether 
these words which were stricken out really constituted a provision 
for submitting the matter to a vote of the people, — as that is a 
matter of argument, I think I may as well use Trumbull's own 
argument. He says that the proposition is in these words : — 

"That the following propositions be and the same are hereby 
offered to the said Convention of the people of Kansas when formed, 
for their free acceptance or rejection; which, if accepted by the 
Convention and ratified by the people at the election for the adoption 
of the constitution ^ shall be obligatory upon the United States and 
the said State of Kansas." 

Now, Trumbull alleges that these last words were stricken 
out of the bill when it came back, and he says this was a 
provision for submitting the constitution to a vote of the people ; 
and his argument is this : " Would it have been possible to ratify 
the land propositions at the election for the adoption of the 
constitution, unless such an election was to be held?" This is 
Trumbull's argument. Now, Judge Douglas does not meet the 
charge at all, but he stands up and says there was no such 
proposition in that bill for submitting the constitution to be 
framed to a vote of the people. Trumbull admits that the 
language is not a direct provision for submitting it, but it is a 
provision necessarily implied from another provision. He asks 
you how it is possible to ratify the land proposition at the election 
for the adoption of the constitution, if there was no election to 
be held for the adoption of the constitution. And he goes on to 
show that it is not any less a law because the provision is put in 
that indirect shape than it would be if it was put directly. But 
I presume I have said enough to draw attention to this point, 
and I pass it by also. 

Another one of the points that Judge Douglas makes upon 
Trumbull, and at very great length, is, that Trumbull, while the 
bill was pending, said in a speech in the Senate that he supposed 



212 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the constitution to be made would have to be submitted to the 
people. He asks, if Trumbull thought so then, what ground is 
there for anybody thinking otherwise now? Fellow-citizens, this 
much may be said in reply : That bill had been in the hands of 
a party to which Trumbull did not belong. It had been in the 
hands of the committee, at the head of which Judge Douglas 
stood. Trumbull perhaps had a printed copy of the original 
Toombs bill. I have not the evidence on that point, except a 
sort of inference I draw from the general course of business 
there. What alterations, or what provisions in the way of 
altering, were going on in committee, Trumbull had no means 
of knowing, until the altered bill was reported back. Soon 
afterward, when it was reported back, there was a discussion 
over it, and perhaps Trumbull in reading it hastily in the altered 
form did not perceive all the bearings of the alterations. He 
was hastily borne into the debate, and it does not follow that 
because there was something in it Trumbull did not perceive, 
that something did not exist. More than this, is it true that 
what Trumbull did can have any effect on what Douglas did? 
Suppose Trumbull had been in the plot with these other 
men, would that let Douglas out of it? Would it exonerate 
Douglas that Trumbull didn't then perceive he was in the plot? 
He also asks the question : Why didn't Trumbull propose to 
amend the bill, if he thought it needed any amendment? Why, I 
believe that everything Judge Trumbull had proposed, particularly 
in connection with this question of Kansas and Nebraska, since 
he had been on the floor of the Senate, had been promptly voted 
down by Judge Douglas and his friends. He had no promise 
that an amendment offered by him to anything on this subject 
would receive the slightest consideration. Judge Trumbull did 
bring to the notice of the Senate at that time the fact that there 
was no provision for submitting the constitution about to be made 
for the people of Kansas, to a vote of the people. I believe I 
may venture to say that Judge Douglas made some reply to this 
speech of Judge Trumbull's, hut he never noticed that -pai't of it 
at all. And so the thing passed by. I think, then, the fact that 
Judge Trumbull offered no amendment, does not throw much 
blame upon him ; and if it did, it does not reach the question of 
fact as to what yudge Douglas was doing. I repeat, that if 
Trumbull had himself been in the plot, it would not at all relieve 
the others who were in it from blame. If I should be indicted 
for murder, and upon the trial it should be discovered that I had 
been implicated in that murder, but that the prosecuting witness 
was guilty too, that would not at all touch the question of my 
crime. It would be no relief to my neck that they discovered 
this other man who charged the crime upon me to be guilty too. 
Another one of the points Judge Douglas makes upon Judge 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 213 

Trumbull is, that when he spoke in Chicago he made his charge 
to rest upon the fact that the bill had the provision in it for 
submitting the constitution to a vote of the people when it went 
into his (Judge Douglas's) hands, that it was missing when he 
reported it to the Senate, and that in a public speech he had 
subsequently said the alterations in the bill were made while it 
was in committee, and that they were made in consultation 
between him (Judge Douglas) and Toombs. And Judge Douglas 
goes on to comment upon the fact of Trumbull's adducing in his 
Alton speech the proposition that the bill not only came back 
with that proposition stricken out, but with another clause and 
another provision in it, saying that "until the complete execution 
of this Act there shall be no election in said Territory," — which, 
Trumbull argued, was not only taking the provision for submit- 
ting to a vote of the people out of the bill, but was adding an 
affirmative one, in that it prevented the people from exercising 
the right under a bill that was merely silent on the question. 
Now, in regard to what he says, that Trumbull shifts the issue, 
that he shifts his ground, — and I believe he uses the term that, 
■" it being proven false, he has changed ground," — I call upon all 
of you, when you come to examine that portion of Trumbull's 
speech (for it will make a part of mine), to examine whether 
Trumbull has shifted his ground or not. I say he did not shift 
his ground, but that he brought forward his original charge and 
the evidence to sustain it yet more fully, but precisely as he 
originally made it. Then, in addition thereto, he brought in a 
new piece of evidence. He shifted no ground. He brought no 
new piece of evidence inconsistent with his former testimony ; 
but he brought a new piece, tending, as he thought, and as I 
think, to prove his proposition. To illustrate : A man brings an 
accusation against another, and on trial the man making the 
charge introduces A and B to prove the accusation. At a second 
trial he introduces the same witnesses, who tell the same story 
as before, and a third witness, who tells the same thing, and in 
addition gives further testimony corroborative of the charge. So 
with Trumbull. There was no shifting of ground, nor incon- 
sistency of testimony between the new piece of evidence and 
what he originally introduced. 

But Judge Douglas says that he himself moved to strike out 
that last provision of the bill, and that on his motion it was 
stricken out and a substitute inserted. That I presume is the 
truth. I presume it is true that that last proposition was stricken 
out by Judge Douglas. Trumbull has not said it was not. Trum- 
bull has himself said that it was so stricken out. He says : " I 
am now speaking of the bill as Judge Douglas reported it back. 
It was amended somewhat in the Senate before it passed, but I 
am speaking of it as he brought it back." Now, when Judge 



214 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Douglas parades the fact that the provision was stricken out of 
the bill when it came back, he asserts nothing contrary to what 
Trumbull alleges. Trumbull has only said that he originally put 
it in, — not that he did not strike it out. Trumbull says it 
was not in the bill when it went to the committee. When it 
came back it was in, and Judge Douglas said the alterations were 
made by him in consultation with Toombs. Trumbull alleges, 
therefore, as his conclusion, that Judge Douglas put it in. 
Then, if Douglas wants to contradict Trumbull and call him a 
liar, let him say he did not put it in, and not that he didn't take 
it out again. It is said that a bear is sometimes hard enough 
pushed to drop a cub ; and so I presume it was in this case. I 
presume the truth is that Douglas put it in, and afterward took 
it out. That I take it is the truth about it. Judge Trumbull 
says one thing, Douglas says another thing, and the two don't 
contradict one another at all. The question is. What did he put 
it in for? In the first place, what did he take the other provision 
out of the bill for, — the provision which Trumbull argued was 
necessary for submitting the constitution to a vote of the people? 
What did he take that out for ; and, having taken it out, what 
did he put this in for? I say that in the run of things, it is not 
unlikely forces conspire to render it vastly expedient for Judge 
Douglas to take that latter clause out again. The question that 
Trumbull has made is that Judge Douglas put it in ; and he don't 
meet Trumbull at all unless he denies that. 

In the clause of Judge Douglas's speech upon this subject he 
uses this language toward Judge Trumbull. He says : " He 
forges his evidence from beginning to end ; and by falsifying 
the record, he endeavors to bolster up his false charge." Well, 
that is a pretty serious statement. Trumbull forges his evidence 
from beginning to end. Now, upon my own authority I say that 
it is not true. What is a forgery? Consider the evidence that 
Trumbull has brought forward. When you come to read the 
speech, as 3'ou will be able to, examine whether the evidence is 
a forger}^ from beginning to end. He had the bill or document 
in his hand like that [holding up a paper]. He says that is a copy 
of the Toombs bill, — the amendment offered by Toombs. He says 
that is a copy of the bill as it was introduced and went into Judge 
Douglas's hands. Now, does Judge Douglas say that is a 
forgery? That is one thing Trumbull brought forward. Judge 
Douglas says he forged it from beginning to end ! That is the 
"beginning," we will say. Does Douglas say that is a forgery? 
Let him say it to-day, and we will have a subsequent examina- 
tion upon this subject. Trumbull then holds up another docu- 
ment like this, and says that is an exact copy of the bill as it 
came back in the amended form out of Judge Douglas's hands. 
Does Judge Douglas say that is a forgery? Does he say it in 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 215 

his general sweeping charge? Does he say so now? If he does 
not, then take this Toombs bill and the bill in the amended form, 
and it only needs to compare them to see that the provision is in 
the one and not in the other ; it leaves the inference inevitable 
that it was taken out. 

But while I am dealing with this question, let us see what 
Trumbull's other evidence is. One other piece of evidence I 
will read. Trumbull says there are in this original Toombs bill 
these words : "That the following propositions be and the same 
are hereby offered to the said Convention of the people of 
Kansas, when formed, for their free acceptance or rejection ; 
which, if accepted by the Convention and ratified by the people 
at the election for the adoption of the constitution, shall be obli- 
gatory upon the United States and the said State of Kansas." 
Now, if it is said that this is a forgery, we will open the paper 
here and see whether it is or not. Again, Trumbull says, as he 
goes along, that Mr. Bigler made the following statement in his 
place in the Senate, December 9, 1857 : — 

" I was present when that subject was discussed by senators 
before the bill was introduced, and the question was raised and 
discussed, whether the constitution, when formed, should be submitted 
to a vote of the people. It was held by those most intelligent on the 
subject that in view of all the difficulties surrounding that Territory, 
the danger of any experiment at that time of a popular vote, it would 
be better there should be no such provision in the Toombs bill ; and it 
was my understanding, in all the intercourse I had, that the Conven- 
tion would make a constitution, and send it here, without submitting 
it to the popular vote," 

Then Trumbull follows on : — 

" In speaking of this meeting again on the 21st December, 1857 
[" Congressional Globe," same vol., page 118] , Senator Bigler said : — 

" ' Nothing was further from my mind than to allude to any 
social or confidential interview. The meeting was not of that char- 
acter. Indeed, it was semi-official, and called to promote the public 
good. My recollection was clear that I left the conference under the 
impression that it had been deemed best to adopt measures to 
admit Kansas as a State through the agency of one popular 
election, and that for delegates to this Convention. This 
impression was stronger because I thought the spirit of the bill 
infringed upon the doctrine of non-intervention, to which I had great 
aversion ; but with the hope of accomplishing a great good, and as 
no movement had been made in that direction in the Territory, I 
waived this objection, and concluded to support the measure. I have 
a few items of testimony as to the correctness of these impressions, 
and with their submission I shall be content. I have before me the 
bill reported by the senator from Illinois on the 7th of March, 1856, 
providing for the admission of Kansas as a State, the third section of 
which reads as follows : — 



216 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

" ' " That the following propositions be, and the same are hereby- 
offered to the said Convention of the people of Kansas, when formed, 
for their free acceptance or rejection ; which, if accepted by the 
Convention and ratified by the people at the election for the adoption 
of the Constitution, shall be obligatory upon the United States and 
the said State of Kansas." 

" 'The bill read in his place by the senator from Georgia on the 
25th of June, and referred to the Committee on Territories, contained 
the same section word for word. Both these bills were under con- 
sideration at the conference referred to ; but, sir, when the senator 
from Illinois reported the Toombs bill to the Senate with amendments, 
the next morning, it did not contain that portion of the third section 
which indicated to the Convention that the constitution should be 
approved by the people. The words, " and ratified by the people at 
the election for the adoptio7i of the constitution^'''' had been stricken 
out.'" 

Now, these things Trumbull says were stated by Bigler upon 
the floor of the Senate on certain days, and that they are recorded 
in the "Congressional Globe" on certain pages. Does Judjnre 
Douglas say this is a forgery? Does he say there is no such 
thing in the " Congressional Globe" ? What does he mean when 
he says Judge Trumbull forges his evidence from beginning to 
end? So again he says in another place, that Judge Douglas, 
in his speech, December 9, 1857 ("Congressional Globe," parti, 
page 15), stated: — . 

"That during the last session of Congress,! [Mr. Douglas] reported 
a bill from the Committee on Territories, to authorize the people of 
Kansas to assemble and form a constitution for themselves. Subse- 
quently the senator from Georgia [Mr. Toombs] brought forward a 
substitute for my bill, which, after having been tnodified by him and 
myself in consultation^ was passed b}' the Senate." 

Now, Trumbull says this is a quotation from a speech of 
Douglas, and is recorded in the " Congressional Globe." Is // a 
forgery? Is it there or not? It may not be there, but I want 
the Judge to take these pieces of evidence, and distinctly say 
they are forgeries if he dare do it. 

A voice : He will. 

Mr. Lincoln : Well, sir, you had better not commit him. 
He gives other quotations, — another from Judge Douglas. He 
says : — 

" I will ask the senator to show me an intimation, from any one 
member of the Senate, in the whole debate on the Toombs bill, and 
in the Union, from any quarter, that the constitution was not to be 
submitted to the people. I will venture to say that on all sides of the 
chamber it was so understood at the time. If the opponents of the 
bill had understood it was not, they would have made the point on it ; 
and if they had made it, we should certainly have yielded to it, and 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 217 

put in the clause. That is a discovery made since the President found 
out that it was not safe to take it for granted that that would be 
done, which ought in fairness to have been done." 

Judge Trumbull says Douglas made that speech, and it is 
recorded. Does Judge Douglas say it is a forgery, and was not 
true? Trumbull says somewhere, and I propose to skip it, but 
it will be found by any one who will read this debate, that he 
did distinctly bring it to the notice of those who were engineering 
the bill, that it lacked that provision ; and then he goes on to give 
another quotation from Judge Douglas, where Judge Trumbull 
uses this language : — 

" Judge Douglas, however, on the same day and in the same 
debate, probably recollecting or being reminded of the fact that I had 
objected to the Toombs bill when pending that it did not provide for 
a submission of the constitution to the people, made another state- 
ment, which is to be found in the same volume of the ' Globe,' page 
22, in which he says : — 

" ' That the bill was silent on this subject was true, and my 
attention was called to that about the time it was passed ; and I took 
the fair construction to be, that powers not delegated were reserved, 
and that of course the constitution would be submitted to the people.' 

" Whether this statement is consistent with the statement just 
before made, that had the point been made it would have been yielded 
to, or that it was a new discovery, you will determine." 

So I say. I do not know whether Judge Douglas will dis- 
pute this, and yet maintain his positon that Trumbull's evidence 
" was forged from beginning to end." I will remark that I have 
not got these '* Congressional Globes " with me. Theyare large 
books, and difficult to carry about, and if Judge Douglas shall 
say that on these points where Trumbull has quoted from them 
there are no such passages there, I shall not be- able to prove 
they are there upon this occasion, but I will have another chance. 
Whenever he points out the forgery and says, *' I declare that 
this particular thing which Trumbull has uttered is not to be 
found where he says it is," then my attention will be drawn to 
that, and I will arm myself for the contest, — stating now that I 
have not the slightest doubt on earth that I will find every 
quotation just where Trumbull says it is. Then the question is. 
How can Douglas call that a forgery? How can he make out 
that it is a forgery? What is a forgery? It is the bringing 
forward something in writing or in print purporting to be of 
certain effect when it is altogether untrue. If you come forward 
with my note for one hundred dollars when I have never given 
such a note, there is a forgery. If you come forward with a 
letter purporting to be written by me which I never wrote, there 
is another forgery. If you produce anything in writing or in 
print saying it is so and so, the document not being genuine, a 

29 



218 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

forgery has been committed. How do you make this a forgery 
when every piece of the evidence is genuine? If Judge Doughis 
does say these documents and quotations are false and forged, he 
has a full right to do so ; but until he does it specifically, we don't 
know how to get at him. If he does say they are false and 
forged, I will then look further into it, and I presume I can pro- 
cure the certificates of the proper officers that they are genuine 
copies. I have no doubt each of these extracts will be found 
exactly where Trumbull says it is. Then I leave it to you if 
Judge Douglas, in making his sweeping charge that Judge Trum- 
bull's evidence is forged from beginning to end, at all meets the 
case, — if that is the way to get at the facts. I repeat again, if he 
will point out which one is a forgery, I will carefully examine it, 
and if it proves that any one of them is really a forgery, it will 
not be me who will hold to it any longer. I have always wanted 
to deal with everyone I meet, candidly and honestly. If I have 
made any assertion not warranted by facts, and it is pointed out 
to me, I will withdraw it cheerfully. But I do not choose to see 
Judge Trumbull calumniated, and the evidence he has brought 
forward branded in general terms, " a forgery from beginning to 
end." This is not the legal way of meeting a charge, and I 
submit to all intelligent persons, both friends of Judge Douglas 
and of myself, whether it is. 

The point upon Judge Douglas is this. The bill that went 
into his hands had the provision in it for a submission of the 
constitution to the people ; and I say its language amounts to an 
express provision for a submission, and that he took the provision 
out. He says it was known that the bill was silent in this 
particular ; htU I say, yudge Douglas, it was not silent zvhen you 
got it. It was vocal with the declaration, when 3^ou got it, for a 
submission of the constitution to the people. And now, my 
direct qviestion to Judge Douglas is, to answer why, if he deemed 
the bill silent on this point, he found it necessar}'- to strike out 
those particular harmless words. If he had found the bill silent 
and without this provision, he might say what he does now. If 
he supposes it was implied that the constitution would be sub- 
mitted to a vote of the people, how could these two lines so 
encumber the statute as to make it necessary to strike them out? 
How could he infer that a submission was still implied, after its 
express provision had been stricken from the bill? I find the 
bill vocal with the provision, while he silenced it. He took it 
out, and although he took out the other provision preventing a sub- 
mission to a vote of the people, I ask. Why did yoti first -put it in? 
I ask him whether he took the original provision out, which 
Trumbull alleges was in the bill ? If he admits that he did take 
it, / ask him what he did it for? It looks to us as if he had 
altered the bill. If it looks differently to him, — if he has a 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 219 

different reason for his action from the one we assign him — he 
can tell it. I insist upon knowing why he made the bill silent 
upon that point when it was vocal before he put his hands upon it. 
I was told, before my last paragraph, that my time was 
within three minutes of being out. I presume it is expired now ; 
I therefore close. 



SENATOR DOUGLAS'S SPEECH. 

Ladies and Gentlemen : I had supposed that we assem- 
bled here to-da}^ for the purpose of a joint discussion between Mr. 
Lincoln and myself upon the political questions that now agitate 
the whole country. The rule of such discussions is, that the open- 
ing speaker shall touch upon all the points he intends to discuss, 
in order that his opponent, in reply, shall have the opportunity of 
answering them. Let me ask you what questions of public pol- 
icy, relating to the welfare of this State or the Union, has Mr. 
Lincoln discussed before you? Mr. Lincoln simply contented 
himself at the outset by saying that he was not in favor of social 
and political equality between the white man and the negro, and 
did not desire the law so changed as to make the latter voters or 
eligible to office. I am glad that I have at last succeeded in get- 
ting an answer out of him upon this question of negro citizenship 
and eligibility to office, for I have been trying to bring him to the 
point on it ever since this canvass commenced. 

I will now call your attention to the question which Mr. 
Lincoln has occupied his entire time in discussing. He spent 
his whole hour in retailing a chai'ge made by Senator Trumbull 
against me. The circumstances out of which that charge was 
manufactured occurred prior to the last Presidential election, over 
two years ago. If the charge was true, why did not Trumbull 
make it in 1856, when I w^as discussing the questions of that day 
all over this State with Lincoln and him, and when it was perti- 
nent to the then issue ? He was then as silent as the grave on the 
subject. If that charge was true, the time to have brought it 
forward was the canvass of 1856, the year when the Toombs bill 
passed the Senate. When the facts were fresh in the public 
mind, when the Kansas question was the paramount question of 
the day, and when such a charge would have had a material 
bearing on the election, why did he and Lincoln remain silent 
then, knowing that such a charge could be made and proven if 
true? Were they not false "to you and false to the country in 
going through that entire campaign, concealing their knowledge 
of this enormous conspiracy which, Mr. Trumbull says, he then 
knew and would not tell? Mr. Lincoln intimates, in his speech, 



220 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

a good reason why Mr. Trumbull would not tell, for he says that 
it might be true, as I proved that it was at Jacksonville, that 
Trumbull was also in the plot, yet that the fact of Trumbull's 
being in the plot would not in any way relieve me. He illustrates 
this argument by supposing himself on trial for murder, and says 
that it would be no extenuating circumstance if, on his trial, 
another man was found to be a party to his crime. Well, if 
Trumbull was in the plot, and concealed it in order to escape the 
odium which would have fallen upon himself, I ask you whether 
you can believe him now when he turns State's evidence, and 
avows his own infamy in order to implicate me. I am amazed 
that Mr. Lincoln should now come forward and indorse that 
charge, occupying his whole hour in reading Mr. Trumbull's 
speech in support of it. Why, I ask, does not Mr. Lincoln make 
a speech of his own instead of taking up his time reading Trum- 
bull's speech at Alton? I supposed that Mr. Lincoln was cap- 
able of making a public speech on his own account, or I should 
not have accepted the banter from him for a joint discussion. 
[" How about the charges?"] Do not trouble yourselves, I am 
going to make my speech in my own way, and I trust, as the 
Democrats listened patiently and respectfully to Mr. Lincoln, that 
his friends will not interrupt me when I am answering him. 
When Mr. Trumbull returned from the East, the first thing he 
did when he landed at Chicago was to make a speech wholly 
devoted to assaults upon my public character and public action. 
Up to that time I had never alluded to his course in Congress, or 
to him directly or indirectly, and hence his assaults upon me 
were entirely without provocation and without excuse. Since 
then he has been traveling from one end of the State to the 
other, repeating his vile charge. I propose now to read it in his 
own language : — 

" Now, fellow-citizens, I make the distinct charge that there was 
a preconcerted arrangement and plot entered into by the very men 
who now claim credit for opposing a constitution formed and put in 
force without giving the people any opportunity to pass upon it. 
This, my friends, is a serious charge, but I charge it to-night that the 
very men who traverse the country under banners proclaiming popu- 
lar sovereignty, by design concocted a bill on purpose to force a con- 
stitution upon that people." 

In answer to some one in the crowd who asked him a ques- 
tion, Trumbull said : — 

" And you want to satisfy yourself that he was in the plot to 
force a constitution upon that people? I will satisfy you. I will 
cram the truth down any honest man's throat until he cannot deny it. 
And to the man who does deny it, I will cram the lie down his throat 
till he shall cry enough. 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 221 

" It is preposterous ; it is the most damnable effrontery that man 
ever put on, to conceal a scheme to defraud and cheat the people out 
of their rights, and then claim credit for it." 

That is the polite language Senator Trumbull applied to me, 
his colleague, when I was two hundred miles off. Why did he 
not speak out as boldly in the Senate of the United States, and 
cram the lie down my throat when I denied the charge, first 
made by Bigler, and made him take it back? You all recollect 
how Bigler assaulted me when I was engaged in a hand-to-hand 
fight, resisting a scheme to force a constitution on the people of 
Kansas against their will. He then attacked me with this charge ; 
but I proved its utter falsity, nailed the slander to the counter, 
and made him take the back track. There is not an honest man 
ifl America who read that debate who will pretend that the 
charge is true. Trumbull was then present in the Senate, face 
to face with me ; and why did he not then rise and repeat the 
charge, and say he would cram the lie down my throat? I tell 
you that Trumbull then knew it was a lie. He knew that Toombs 
denied that there ever was a clause in the bill he brought forward, 
calling for and requiring a submission of the Kansas Constitution 
to the people. I will tell you what the facts of the case were. 
I introduced a bill to authorize the people of Kansas to form a 
constitution, and come into the Union as a State whenever they 
should have the requisite population for a member of Congress, 
and Mr. Toombs proposed a substitute, authorizing the people of 
Kansas, with their then population of only 25,000, to form a con- 
stitution, and come in at once. The question at issue was, 
whether we would admit Kansas with a population of 25,000, or, 
make her wait until she had the ratio entitling her to a represent- 
ative in Congress, which was 93,420. That was the point of 
dispute in the Committee of Territories, to which both my bill 
and Mr. Toombs's substitute had be enreferred. I was overruled 
by a majority of the committee, my proposition rejected, and Mr. 
Toombs's proposition to admit Kansas then, with her population 
of 25,000, adopted. Accordingly, a bill to carry out his idea of 
immediate admission was reported as a substitute for mine ; the 
onl}'^ points at issue being, as I have already said, the question of 
population, and the adoption of safeguards against frauds at the 
election. Trumbull knew this, — the whole Senate knew it, — 
and hence he was silent at that time. He waited until I became 
engaged in this canvass, and finding that I was showing up Lin- 
coln's Abolitionism and negro equality doctrines, that I was driv- 
ing Lincoln to the wall, and white men would not support his 
rank Abolitionism, he came back from the East and trumped up a 
system of charges against me, hoping that I would be compelled 
to occupy my entire time in defending myself, so that I would 
not be able to show up the enormity of the principles of the Ab- 



222 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

olitionists. Now, the only reason, and the true reason, why Mr. 
Lincoln has occupied the whole of his first hour in this issue be- 
tween Trumbull and myself, is, to conceal from this vast audi- 
ence the real questions which divide the two great parties. 

I am, not going to allow them to waste much of my time 
with these personal matters. I have lived in this State twent}^- 
five years, most of that time have been in public life, and my 
record is open to you all. If that record is not enough to 
vindicate me from these petty, malicious assaults, I despise ever 
to be elected to office by slandering my opponents and traducing 
other men. Mr. Lincoln asks you to elect him to the United 
States Senate to-day solely because he and Trumbull can slander 
me. Has he given an}?^ other reason? Has he avowed what he 
was desirous to do in Congress on any one question? He desires 
to ride into office, not upon his own merits, not upon the merits 
and soundness of his principles, but upon his success in fastening 
a stale old slander upon me. 

I wish you to bear in mind that up to the time of the introduc- 
tion of the Toombs bill, and after its introduction, there had never 
been an Act of Congress for the admission of a new State which 
contained a clause requiring its constitution to be submitted to 
the people. The general rule made the law silent on the subject, 
taking it for granted that the people would demand and compel 
a popular vote on the ratification of their constitution. Such 
was the general rule under Washington, Jefferson, Madison, 
Jackson, and Polk, under the Whig Presidents and the Democratic 
Presidents, from the beginning of the government down, and 
nobody dreamed that an effort would ever be made to abuse the 
power thus confided to the people of a Territory. For this 
reason our attention was not called to the fact of whether there 
was or was not a clause in the Toombs bill compelling submission, 
but it was taken for granted that the constitution would be 
submitted to the people whether the law compelled it or not. 

Now, I will read from the report by me as Chairman of the 
Committee on Territories at the time I reported back the Toombs 
substitute to the Senate. It contained several things which I 
had voted against in committee, but had been overruled by a 
majority of the members, and it was my duty as Chairman of the 
Committee to report the bill back as it was agreed upon by them. 
The main point upon which I had been overruled was the 
question of population. In my report accompanying the Toombs 
bill, I said : — 

"In the opinion of your Committee, whenever a constitution 
shall be formed in any Territory, preparatory to its admission into the 
Union as a State, justice, the genius of our institutions, the whole 
theory of our republican system, imperatively demand that the voice 
of the people shall be fairly expressed, and their will embodied in 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 223 

that fundamental law, without fraud, or violence, or intimidation, or 
any other improper or unlawful influence, and subject to no other 
restrictions than those imposed by the Constitution of the United 
States." » 

There you find that we took it for granted that the constitu- 
tion was to be submitted to the people, whether the bill was 
silent on the subject or not. Suppose I had reported it so, fol- 
lowing the example of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, 
Monroe, Adams, Jackson, Van Buren, Harrison, Tyler, Polk, 
Taylor, Fillmore, and Pierce, would that fact have been evidence 
of a conspiracy to force a constitution upon the people of Kansas 
against their will? If the charge which Mr. Lincoln makes 
be true against me, it is true against Zachary Taylor, Millard 
Fillmore, and every Whig President, as well as every Democratic 
President, and against Henry Clay, who, in the Senate or House, 
for forty years advocated bills similar to the one I reported, no 
one of them containing a clause compelling the submission of 
the constitution to the people. Are Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Trum- 
bull prepared to charge upon all those eminent men from the 
beginning of the government down to the present day, that the 
absence of a provision compelling submission, in the various bills 
passed by them, authorizing the people of Territories to form 
State constitutions, is evidence of a corrupt design on their part 
to force a constitution upon an unwilling people? 

I ask you to reflect on these things, for I tell you that there is a 
conspiracy to carry this election for the Black Republicans by 
slander, and not by fair means. Mr. Lincoln's speech this day 
is conclusive evidence of the fact. He has devoted his entire 
time to an issue between Mr. Trumbull and myself, and has not 
uttered a word about the politics of the day. Are you going to 
elect Mr. Trumbull's colleague upon an issue between Mr. 
Trumbull and me? I thought I was running against Abraham 
Lincoln, that he claimed to be my opponent, had challenged me 
to a discussion of the public questions of the day with him, and 
was discussing these questions with me ; but it turns out that his 
only hope is to ride into office on Trumbull's back, who will carry 
him by falsehood. 

Permit me to pursue this subject a little further. An exam- 
ination of the record proves that Trumbull's charge — that the 
Toombs bill originally contained a clause requiring the constitu- 
tion to be submitted to the people — is false. The printed copy 
of the bill which Mr. Lincoln held up before you, and which he 
pretends contains such a clause, merely contains a clause 
requiring a submission of the land grant, and there is no clause 
in it requiring a submission of the constitution. Mr. Lincoln 
cannot find such a clause in it. My report shows that we took it 
for granted that the people would require a submission of the 



224 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

constitution, and secure it for themselves. There never was a 
clause in the Toombs bill requiring the constitution to be sub- 
mitted ; Trumbull knew it at the time, and his speech made on 
the night of its passage discloses the fact that he knew it was 
silent on the subject. Lincoln pretends, and tells you, that 
Trumbull has not changed his evidence in support of his charge 
since he made his speech in Chicago. Let us see. The Chicago 
"Times" took up Ti-umbull's Chicago speech, compared it with 
the official records of Congress, and proved that speech to be 
false in its charge that the original Toombs bill required a 
submission of the constitution to the people. Trumbull then saw 
that he was caught, and his falsehood exposed, and he went to 
Alton, and, under the very walls of the penitentiary, made a 
new speech, in which he predicated his assault upon me in the 
allegation that I had caused to be voted into the Toombs bill 
a clause which prohibited the Convention from submitting the 
constitution to the people, and quoted what he pretended was the 
clause. Now, has not Mr. Trumbull entirely changed the evidence 
on which he bases his charge? The clause which he quoted in 
his Alton speech (which he has published and circulated broad- 
cast over the State) as having been put into the Toombs bill by 
me, is in the following words : "And until the complete execu- 
tion of this Act, no other election shall be held in said Territor3\" 

Trumbull says that the object of that amendment was to 
prevent the Convention from submitting the constitution to a vote 
of the people. 

Now, I will show you that when Trumbull made that state- 
ment at Alton he knew it to be untrue. I read from Trumbull's 
speech in the Senate on the Toombs bill on the night of its 
passage. He then said : — 

" There is nothing said in this bill, so far as I have discovered, 
about submitting the constitution, which is to be formed, to the 
people for their sanction or rejection. Perhaps the Convention will 
have the right to submit it, if it should think proper, but it is certainly 
not compelled to do so, according to the provisions of the bill." 

Thus you see that Trumbull, when the bill was on its passage 
in the Senate, said that it was silent on the subject of submission, 
and that there was nothing in the bill one way or the other on it. 
In his Alton speech he says there was a clause in the bill pre- 
venting its submission to the people, and that I had it voted in 
as an amendment. Thus I convict him of falsehood and slander 
by quoting from him, on the passage of the Toombs bill in the 
Senate of the United States, his own speech, made on the night 
of July 2, 1856, and reported in the "Congressional Globe" for 
the first session of the thirty-fourth Congress, vol. 33. What will 
you think of a man who makes a false charge, and falsifies the 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 225 

records to prove it? I will now show you that the clause which 
Trumbull sa3'S was put in the bill on my motion was never put in 
at all by me, but was stricken out on my motion, and another 
substituted in its place. I call your attention to the same volume 
of the " Congressional Globe " to which I have already referred, 
page 795, where you will find the following report of the pro- 
ceedings of the Senate : — 

" Mr. Douglas : I have an amendment to offer from the Com- 
mittee on Territories. On page 8, section 11, strike out the words 
' until the complete execution of this Act, no other election shall be 
held in said Territory,' and insert the amendment which I hold in 
my hand." 

You see from this that I moved to strike out the very words 
that Trumbull says I put in. The Committee on Territories 
overruled me in committee, and put the clause in ; but as soon 
as I got the bill back into the Senate, I moved to strike it out, 
and put another clause in its place. On the same page you will 
find that my amendment was agreed to unanimously. I then 
offered another amendment, recognizing the right of the people 
of Kansas, under the Toombs bill, to order just such elections as 
they saw proper. You can find it on page 796 of the same 
volume. I will read it : — 

"Mr. Douglas: I have another amendment to offer from the 
Committee, to follow the amendment which has been adopted. The 
bill reads now : ' And until the complete execution of this Act, no 
other election shall be held in said Territory.' It has been suggested 
that it should be modified in this way : ' And to avoid conflict in the 
complete execution of this Act, all other elections in said Territory 
are hereby postponed until such time as said Convention shall appoint,' 
so that they can appoint the day in the event that there should be a 
failure to come into the Union." 

The amendment was unanimotisly agreed to, — clearly and 
distinctly recognizing the right of the Convention to order just 
as many elections as they saw proper in the execution of the Act. 
Trumbull concealed in his Alton speech the fact that the clause 
he quoted had been stricken out in my motion, and the other 
fact that this other clause was put in the bill on my motion, and 
made the false charge that I incorporated into the bill a clause 
preventing submission, in the face of the fact, that, on my motion, 
the bill was so amended before it passed as to recognize in 
express words the right and duty of submission. 

On this record that I have produced before you, I repeat my 
charge that Trumbull did falsify the public records of the country, 
in order to make his charge against me, and I tell Mr. Abraham 
Lincoln that if he will examine these records, he will then know 
that what I state is true. Mr. Lincoln has this day indorsed 

30 



226 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Mr. Trumbull's veracity after he had my word for it that that 
veracity was proved to be violated and forfeited by the public 
records. It will not do for Mr. Lincoln, in parading his 
calumnies against me, to put Mr. Trumbull between him and the 
odium and responsibility which justly attaches to such calumnies. 
I tell him that I am as ready to prosecute the indorser as the 
maker of a forged note. I regret the necessity of occupying my 
time with these petty personal matters. It is unbecoming the 
dignity of a canvass for an office of the character for which we 
are candidates. When I commenced the canvass at Chicago, I 
spoke of Mr. Lincoln in terms of kindness as an old friend ; 
I said that he was a good citizen, of unblemished character, 
against whom I had nothing to say. I repeated these compli- 
mentary remarks about him in my successive speeches, until he 
became the indorser for these and other slanders against me. If 
there is anything personally disagreeable, uncourteous, or dis- 
reputable in these personalities, the sole responsibility rests on 
Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Trumbull, and their backers. 

I will show you another charge made by Mr. Lincoln 
against me, as an off-set to his determination of willingness to 
take back anything that is incorrect, and to correct any false 
statement he may have made. He has several times charged 
that the Supreme Court, President Pierce, President Buchanan, 
and myself, at the time I introduced the Nebraska bill in 
January, 1854, at Washington, entered into a conspiracy to estab- 
lish slavery all over this country. I branded this charge as a 
falsehood, and then he repeated it, asked me to analyze its truth 
and answer it. I told him, "Mr. Lincoln, I know what you are 
after, — you want to occupy my time in personal matters, to 
prevent me from showing up the revolutionary principles which 
the Abolition party — whose candidate you are — have proclaimed 
to the world." But he asked me to analyze his proof, and I did 
so. I called his attention to the fact that at the time the 
Nebraska bill was introduced, there was no such case as the 
Dred Scott case pending in the Supreme Court, nor was it 
brought there for years afterwards, and hence that it was impos- 
sible there could have been any conspiracy between the Judges of 
the Supreme Court and the other parties involved. I proved by the 
record that the charge was false, and what did he answer? Did 
he take it back like an honest man, and say that he had been 
mistaken? No ; he repeated the charge, and said, that although 
there was no such case pending that year, there was an under- 
standing between the Democratic owners of Dred Scott and 
the Judges of the Supreme Court and other parties involved, that 
the case should be brought up. I then demanded to know who 
these Democratic owners of Dred Scott were. He could not or 
would not tell ; he did not know. In truth, there were no Demo- 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 227 

cratic owners of Dred Scott on the face of the land. Dred Scott 
was owned at that time by the Rev. Dr. Chaffee, an Abolition 
member of Congress from Springfield, Massachusetts, and his 
wife ; and Mr. Lincoln ought to have known that Dred Scott 
was so owned, for the reason that as soon as the decision was 
announced by the court Dr. Chaffee and his wife executed a deed 
emancipating him, and put that deed on record. It was a matter 
of public record, therefore, that at the time the case was taken to 
the Supreme Court, Dred Scott was owned by an Abolition 
member of Congress, a friend of Lincoln's and a leading man of 
his party, while the defence was conducted by Abolition lawyers, 
— and thus the Abolitionists managed both sides of the case. I 
have exposed these facts to Mr. Lincoln, and yet he will not 
withdraw his charge of conspiracy. I now submit to you whether 
you can place any confidence in a man who continues to make a 
charge when its utter falsity is proven by the public records. I 
will state another fact to show how utterly reckless and unscrup- 
ulous this charge against the Supreme Court, President Pierce, 
President Buchanan, and myself is. Lincoln says that President 
Buchanan was in the conspiracy at Washington in the winter of 
1854, when the Nebraska bill was introduced. The history of 
this country shows that James Buchanan was at that time repre- 
senting this country at the Court of St. James, Great Britain, 
with distinguished ability and usefulness, that he had not been 
in the United States for nearly a year previous, and that he did 
not return until about three years after. Yet Mr. Lincoln keeps 
repeating this charge of conspiracy against Mr. Buchanan when 
the public records prove it to be untrue. Having proved it to be 
false as far as the Supreme Court and President Buchanan are 
concerned, I drop it, leaving the public to say whether I, by my- 
self, without their concurrence, could have gone into a conspiracy 
with them. My friends, you see that the object clearly is to con- 
duct the canvass on personal matters, and hunt me down with 
charges that are proven to be false by the public records of the 
country. I am willing to throw open my whole public and pri- 
vate life to the inspection of any man, or all men who desire to 
investigate it. Having resided among 3'^ou twenty-five years, 
during nearly the whole of which time a public man, exposed to 
more assaults, perhaps more abuse, than any man living of my 
age, or who ever did live, and having survived it all and still com- 
manded your confidence, I am willing to trust to your know- 
ledge of me and my public conduct without making any more 
defence against these assaults. 

Fellow-Citizens, I came here for the purpose of discussing 
the leading political topics which now agitate the countr}^. I 
have no charges to make against Mr. Lincoln, none against Mr. 
Trumbull, and none against any man who is a candidate, except 



228 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

in repelling their assaults upon me. If Mr. Lincoln is a man ot 
bad character, I leave you to find it out ; if his votes in the past 
are not satisfactory, I leave others to ascertain the fact ; if his 
course on the Mexican war was not in accordance with your 
notions of patriotism and fidelity to our own country as against a 
public enemy, I leave you to ascertain the fact. I have no as- 
saults to make upon him, except to trace his course on the ques- 
tions that now divide the country and engross so much of the 
people's attention. 

You know that prior to 1854 this country was divided into 
two great political parties, one the Whig, the other the Democratic. 
I, as a Democrat for twenty years prior to that time, had been in 
public discussions in this State as an advocate of Democratic 
principles, and I can appeal with confidence to every old line 
Whig within the hearing of my voice to bear testimony that dur- 
ing all that period I fought you Whigs like a man on every ques- 
tion that separated the two parties. I had the highest respect for 
Henry Clay as a gallant party leader, as an eminent statesman, 
and as one of the bright ornaments of this country ; but I con- 
scientiously believed that the Democratic party was right on the 
questions which separated the Democrats from the Whigs. The 
man does not live who can say that I ever personally assailed 
Henry Clay or Daniel Webster, or any one of the leaders of that 
great party, whilst I combated with all my energy the measures 
they advocated. What did we differ about in those days? Did 
Whigs and Democrats differ about this slavery question? On 
the contrary, did we not, in 1850, unite to a man in favor of that 
system of Compromise measures which Mr. Clay introduced, 
Webster defended, Cass supported, and Fillmore approved and 
made the law of the land by his signature? While we agreed 
on those Compromise measures, we differed about a bank, the 
tariff, distribution, the specie circular, the sub-treasury, and other 
questions of that description. Now, let me ask you which one of 
those questions on which Whigs and Democrats then differed now 
remains to divide the two great parties? Every one of those 
questions which divided Whigs and Democrats has passed away, 
the country has outgrown them, they have passed into history. 
Hence it is immaterial whether you were right or I was right on 
the bank, the sub-treasury, and other questions, because they no 
longer continue living issues. What, then, has taken the place 
of those questions about which we once differed? The slavery 
question has now become the leading and controlling issue ; that 
question on which you and I agreed, on which the Whigs and 
Democrats united, has now become the leading issue between 
the National Democracy on the one side, and the Republican, or 
Abolition, party on the other. 

Just recollect for a moment the memorable contest of 1850, 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 229 

when this country was agitated from its centre to its circumfer- 
ence by the slavery agitation. All eyes in this nation were then 
turned to the three great lights that survived the days of the 
Revolution. They looked to Clay, then in retirement at Ash- 
land, and to Webster and Cass, in the United States Senate. 
Clay had retired to Ashland, having, as he supposed, performed 
his mission on earth, and was preparing himself for a better 
sphere of existence in another world. In that retirement he heard 
the discordant, harsh, and grating sounds of sectional strife and 
disunion, and he aroused and came forth and resumed his seat in 
the Senate, that great theatre of his great deeds. P'rom the mo- 
ment that Clay arrived among us he became the leader of all the 
Union men, whether Whigs or Democrats. For nine months we 
each assembled, each day, in the council-chamber, Clay in the 
chair, with Cass upon his right hand, and Webster upon his left, 
and the Democrats and Whigs gathered around, forgetting dif- 
ferences, and only animated by one common, patriotic sentiment, 
to devise means and measures by which we could defeat the mad 
and revolutionary scheme of the Northern Abolitionists and 
Southern disunionists. We did devise those means. Clay 
brought them forward, Cass advocated them, the Union Demo- 
crats and Union Whigs voted for them, Fillmore signed them, 
and they gave peace and quiet to the country. Those Comprom- 
ise measures of 1850 were founded upon the great fundamental 
principle that the people of each State and each Territory ought 
to be left free to form and regulate their own domestic institu- 
tions in their own way, subject only to the Federal Constitution. 
I will ask every old line Democrat and every old line Whig within 
the hearing of my voice if I have not truly stated the issues as they 
then presented themselves to the country. You recollect that the 
Abolitionists raised a howl of indignation, and cried for ven- 
geance and the destruction of Democrats and Whigs both, who 
supported those Compromise measures of 1850. When I returned 
home to Chicago, I found the citizens inflamed and infuriated 
against the authors of those great measures. Being the only man 
in that city who was held responsible for affirmative votes on all 
those measures, I came forward and addressed the assembled in- 
habitants, defended each and every one of Clay's Compromise 
measures as they passed the Senate and the House, and were 
approved by President Fillmore. Previous to that time, the city 
council had passed resolutions nullifying the Act of Congress, and 
instructing the police to withhold all assistance from its execution ; 
but the people of Chicago listened to my defence, and, like can- 
did, frank, conscientious men, when they became convinced that 
they had done an injustice to Clay, Webster, Cass, and all of us 
who had supported those measures, they repealed their nullifying 
resolutions, and declared that the laws should be executed and 



230 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the supremacy of the Constitution maintained. Let it always be 
recorded in history to the immortal honor of the people of Chi- 
cago that they returned to their duty when they found that they 
were wrong, and did justice to those whom they had blamed and 
abused unjustly. When the Legislature of this State assembled 
that year, they proceeded to pass resolutions approving the Com- 
promise measures of 1850. When the Whig party assembled in 
1852 at BaUimore in National Convention for the last time, to 
nominate Scott for the Presidency, they adopted as a part of their 
platform the Compromise measures of 1850, as the cardinal plank 
upon which every Whig would stand, and by which he would 
regulate his future conduct. When the Democratic party assem- 
bled at the same place one month after, to nominate General 
Pierce, we adopted the same platform so far as those Compromise 
measures were concerned, agreeing that we would standby those 
glorious measures as a cardinal article in the Democratic faith. 
Thus you see that in 1852 all the old Whigs and all the old 
Democrats stood on a common plank so far as this slavery ques- 
tion was concerned, differing on other questions. 

Now, let me ask, how is it that since that time so man}'^ of 
3'ou Whigs have wandered from the time path marked out by 
Clay, and carried out broad and wide by the great Webster? 
How is it that so many old line Democrats have abandoned the 
old faith of their party, and joined with Abolitionism and Free- 
soilism to overturn the platform of the old Democrats, and the 
platform of the old Whigs? You cannot deny that since 1854 
there has been a great revolution on this one question. How 
has it been brought about? I answer, that no sooner was 
the sod grown green over the grave of the immortal Clay, 
no sooner was the rose planted on the tomb of the God-like 
Webster, than many of the leaders of the Whig party, such as 
Seward of New York and his followers, led off and attempted to 
Abolitionize the Whig party, and transfer all your old Whigs, 
bound hand and foot, into the Abolition camp. Seizing hold of 
the temporary excitement produced in this country by the intro- 
duction of the Nebraska bill, the disappointed politicians in the 
Democratic party united with the disappointed politicians in the 
Whig party, and endeavored to form a new party, composed of 
all the Abolitionists, of Abolitionized Democrats and Abolitionized 
Whigs, banded together in an Abolition platform. 

And who led that crusade against National principles in this 
State? I answer, Abraham Lincoln on behalf of the Whigs, and 
Lyman Trumbull on behalf of the Democrats, formed a scheme 
by which they would Abolitionize the two great parties in this 
State, on condition that Lincoln should be sent to the United 
States Senate in place of General Shields, and that Trumbull 
should go to Congress from the Belleville District until I would 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 231 

be accommodating enough either to die or resign for his benefit, 
and then he was to go to the Senate in my place. You all 
remember that during the year 1854 these two worthy gentlemen, 
Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Trumbull, one an old line Whig and the 
other an old line Democrat, were hunting in partnership to elect 
a Legislature against the Democratic party. I canvassed the 
State that year from the time I returned home until the election 
came off, and spoke in every county that I could reach during 
that period. In the northern part of the State I found Lincoln's 
ally, in the person of Fred Douglass, the negro, preaching 
Abolition doctrines, while Lincoln was discussing the same prin- 
ciples down here, and Trumbull, a little farther down, was advo- 
cating the election of members to the Legislature who would act 
in concert with Lincoln's and Fred Douglass's friends. I wit- 
nessed an effort made at Chicago by Lincoln's then associates, 
and now supporters, to put Fred Douglass, the negro, on the 
stand, at a Democratic meeting, to reply to the illustrious 
General Cass, when he was addressing the people there. 
They had the same negro hunting me down, and they 
now have a negro traversing the northern counties of the 
State and speaking in behalf of Lincoln. Lincoln knows 
that when we were at Freeport in joint discussion there 
was a distinguished colored friend of his there then who 
was on the stump for him, and who made a speech there the 
night before we spoke, and another the night after, a short dis- 
tance from Freeport, in favor of Lincoln ; and in order to show 
how much interest the colored brethren felt in the success of their 
brother Abe, I have with me here, and would read it if it would not 
occupy too much of my time, a speech made by Fred Douglass 
in Poughkeepsie, N. Y., a short time since, to a large Conven- 
tion in which he conjures all the friends of negro equality and 
negro citizenship to rally as one man around Abraham Lincoln, 
the perfect embodiment of their principles, and by all means to 
defeat Stephen A. Douglas. Thus you find that this Republican 
party in the northern part of the State had colored gentlemen 
for their advocates in 1854, in company with Lincoln and Trum- 
bull, as they have now. When, in October, 1854, I went down 
to Springfield to attend the State Fair, I found the leaders of this 
party all assembled together under the title of an anti-Nebraska 
meeting. It was Black Republicans up north, and anti-Nebraska 
at Sprinfield. I found Lovejoy, a high-priest of Abolitionism, 
and Lincoln, one of the leaders who was towing the old 
line Whigs into the Abolition camp, and Trumbull, Sidney 
Breese, and Governor Reynolds, all making speeches against 
the Democratic party and myself, at the same place and in the 
same cause. The same men who are now fighting the Demo- 
cratic party and the regular Democratic nominees in this State 



232 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

were fighting us then. They did not then acknowledge that 
they had become Abolitionists, and many of them deny it now. 
Breese, Dougherty, and Reynolds were then fighting the Democ- 
racy under the title of anti-Nebraska men, and now they are 
fighting the Democracy under the pretence that they are Simon 
■pure Democrats, saying that they are authorized to have every 
office-holder in Illinois beheaded who prefers the election of 
Douglas to that of Lincoln, or the success of the Democratic 
ticket in preference to the Abolition ticket for members of Con- 
gress, State officers, members of the Legislature, or any office in 
the State. They canvassed the State against us in 1854, as they 
are doing now, owning different names and different principles 
in different localities, but having a common object in view, viz : 
The defeat of all men holding National principles in opposition 
to this sectional Abolition party. They carried the Legislature 
in 1854, and when it assembled in Springfield they proceeded to 
elect a United States Senator, all voting for Lincoln, with one or 
two exceptions, which exceptions prevented them from quite 
electing him. And why should they not elect him? Had not 
Trumbull agreed that Lincoln should have Shields's place? Had 
not the Abolitionists agreed to it? Was it not the solemn com- 
pact, the condition on which Lincoln agreed to Abolitionize the 
old Whigs that he should be senator? Still, Trumbull, having 
control of a few Abolitionized Democrats, would not allow them 
all to vote for Lincoln on any one ballot, and thus kept him for 
some time within one or two votes of an election, until he 
w^orried out Lincoln's friends, and compelled them to drop him 
and elect Trumbull, in violation of the bargain. I desire to read 
you a piece of testimony in confirmation of the notoriously 
public facts which I have stated to you. Colonel James H. 
Matheny, of Springfield, is, and for twenty years has been, the 
confidential personal and political friend and manager of Mr. 
Lincoln. Matheny is this very day the candidate of the Repub- 
lican, or Abolition, party for Congress against the gallant Major 
Thos. L. Harris, in the Springfield District, and is making 
speeches for Lincoln and against me. I will read you the 
testimony of Matheny about this bargain between Lincoln and 
Trumbull when they undertook to Abolitionize Whigs and 
Democrats only four years ago. Matheny, being mad at Trum- 
bull for having played a Yankee trick on Lincoln, exposed the 
bargain in a public speech two years ago, and I will read the 
published report of that speech, the correctness of which Mr. 
Lincoln will not deny : — 

" The Whigs, Abolitionists, Know-Nothings, and renegade Demo- 
crats made a solemn compact for the purpose of carrying this State 
against the Democracy on this plan : 1st, that they would all combine 
and elect Mr. Trumbull to Congress, and thereby carrj' his district for 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 233 

the Legislature, in order to throw all the strength that could be obtained 
into that body against the Democrats ; 2d, that when the Legislature 
should meet, the officers of that body, such as Speaker, clerks, door- 
keepers, etc., would be given to the Abolitionists; and, 8d, that the 
Whigs were to have the United States senator. That, accordingly, 
in good faith, Trumbull was elected to Congress, and his district 
carried for the Legislature ; and when it convened, the Abolitionists 
got all the officers of that body, and thus far the ' bond ' was fairly 
executed. The Whigs, on their part, demanded the election of 
Abraham Lincoln to the United States Senate, that the bond might be 
fulfilled, the other parties to the contract having already secured to 
themselves all that was called for. But, in the most perfidious- 
manner, they refused to elect Mr. Lincoln ; and the mean, low-lived,, 
sneaking Trumbull succeeded, by pleading all that was required by 
any party, in thrusting Lincoln aside, and foisting himself, art 
excrescence from the rotten bowels of the Democracy, into the 
United States Senate; and thus it has ever been, that an honest man 
makes a bad bargain when he conspires or contracts with rogues." 

Lincoln's confidential friend Matheny thought that Lincoln 
made a bad bargain when he conspired with such rogues as 
Trumbull and the Abolitionists. I would like to know whether 
Lincoln had as high opinion of Trumbull's veracity when the 
latter agreed to support him for the Senate, and then cheated him 
as he does now, when Trumbull comes forward and makes 
charges against me. You could not then prove Tnambull an 
honest man either by Lincoln, by Matheny, or by any of 
Lincoln's friends. They charged everywhere that Trumbull 
had cheated them out of the bargain, and Lincoln found sure 
enough that it was a bad bargain to contract and conspire with 
rogues. 

And now I will explain to you what has been a mystery all 
over the State and Union, — the reason why Lincoln was 
nominated for the United States Senate by the Black Republican 
Convention. You know it has never been usual for any party, 
or any convention, to nominate a candidate for United States 
senator. Probably this was the first time that such a thing was 
ever done. The Black Republican Convention had not been 
called for that purpose, but to nominate a State ticket, and every 
man was surprised and many disgusted when Lincoln was 
nominated. Archie Williams thought he was entitled to it, 
Browning knew that he deserved it, Wentworth was certain 
that he would get it, Peck had hopes, Judd felt sure that 
he was the man, and Palmer had claims and had made 
arrangements to secure it ; but, to their utter amazement, 
Lincoln was nominated by the Convention, and not only that, 
but he received the nomination unanimously, by a resolu- 
tion declaring that Abraham Lincoln was " the first, last, and 
only choice" of the Republican party. How did this occur? 

31 



234 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Why, because they could not get Lincoln's friends to make 
another bargain with " rogues," unless the whole party would 
come up as one man and pledge their honor that they would 
stand by Lincoln first, last, and all the time, and that he should 
not be cheated by Lovejoy this time, as he was by Trumbull 
before. Thus, by passing this resolution, the Abolitionists are 
all for him, Lovejoy and Farnsworth are canvassing for him, 
Giddings is ready to come here in his behalf, and the negro 
speakers are already on the stump for him, and he is sure not to 
be cheated this time. He would not go into the arrangement 
imtil he got their bond for it, and Trumbull is compelled now to 
take the stump, get up false charges against me, and travel all 
over the State to try and elect Lincoln, in order to keep Lincoln's 
friends quiet about the bargain in which Trumbull cheated them 
four years ago. You see, now, why it is that Lincoln and 
Trumbull are so mighty fond of each other. They have entered 
into a conspiracy to break me down by these assaults upon my 
public character, in order to draw my attention from a fair 
exposure of the mode in which they attempted to Abolitionize 
the old Whig and the old Democratic parties and lead them 
captive into the Abolition camp. Do you not all remember that 
Lincoln went around here four years ago making speeches to 
you, and telling that you should all go for the Abolition ticket, 
and swearing that he was as good a Whig as he ever was ; and 
that Trumbull went all over the State making pledges to the old 
Democrats, and trying to coax them into the Abolition camp, 
swearing by his Maker, with the uplifted hand, that he was s'ill 
a Democrat, always intended to be, and that never would he 
desert the Democratic party. He got your votes to elect an 
Abolition Legislature, which passed Abolition resolutions, 
attempted to pass Abolition laws, and sustained Abolitionists for 
office, State and National. Now, the same game is attempted to 
be played over again. Then Lincoln and Trumbull made 
captives of the old Whigs and old Democrats, and carried them 
into the Abolition camp, where Father Giddings, the high-priest 
of Abolitionism, received and christened them in the dark cause 
just as fast as they were brought in. Giddings found the 
converts so numerous that he had to have assistance, and he 
sent for John P. Hale, N. P. Banks, Chase, and other Abolition- 
ists, and they came on, and with Lovejoy and Fred Douglass, 
the negro, helped to baptize these new converts as Lincoln, 
Trumbull, Breese, Reynolds, and Dougherty could capture them 
and bring them within the Abolition clutch. Gentlemen, they 
are now around, making the same kind of speeches. Trumbull 
was down in Monroe County the other day, assailing me, and 
making a speech in favor of Lincoln ; and I will show you 
-under what notice his meeting was called. You see these people 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 235 

are Black Republicans or Abolitionists up north, while at Spring- 
field to-day they dare not call their Convention " Republican," 
but are obliged to say "a Convention of all men opposed to the 
Democratic party ;" and in Monroe County and lower Eg3^pt 
Trumbull advertises their meetings as follows : — 

A meeting of the Free Democracy will take place at Waterloo 
on Monday, September 21st inst., whereat Hon. Lyman Trumbull, 
Hon, John Baker, and others will address the people upon the 
different political topics of the day. Members of all parties are 
cordially invited to be present, and hear and determine for them- 
selves. 

September 9, 1858. The Free Democracy. 

Did you ever before hear of this new party, called the "Free 
Democracy " ? 

What object have these Black Republicans in changing their 
name in every county? They have one name in the north, 
another in the centre, and another in the south. When I used to 
practice law before my distinguished judicial friend, whom I 
recognize in the crowd before me, if a man was charged with 
horse-stealing, and the proof showed that he went by one name 
in Stephenson County, another in Sangamon, a third in Monroe, 
and a fourth in Randolph, we thought that the fact of his changing 
his name so often to avoid detection was pretty strong evidence 
of his guilt. I would like to know why it is that this great Free- 
soU Abolition party is not willing to avow the same name in all 
pL.ts of the State? If this party believes that its course is just, 
V by does it not avow the same principles in the North and in the 
South, in the East and in the West, wherever the American flag 
waves over American soil? 

A voice : The party does not call itself Black Republican in 
the North. 

Mr. Douglas : Sir, if you will get a copy of the paper 
published at Waukegan, fifty miles from Chicago, which advo- 
cates the election of Mr. Lincoln, and has his name flying at its 
mast-head, you will find that it declares that " this paper is 
devoted to the cause" of Black Republicanism. I had a copy 
of it, and intended to bring it down here into Egypt to let you see 
what name the party rallied under up in the northern part of the 
State, and to convince you that their principles are as different 
in the two sections of the State as is their name. I am sorry 
that I have mislaid it and have not got it here. Their principles 
in the north are jet-black, in the centre they are in color a decent 
mulatto, and in lower Egypt they are almost white. Why, I 
admired many of the white sentiments contained in Lincoln's 
speech at Jonesboro, and could not help but contrast them with 
the speeches of the same distinguished orator made in the northern 



236 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

part of the State. Down here he denies that the Black Repub- 
lican party is opposed to the admission of any more Slave States, 
under any circumstances, and says that they are willing to allow 
the people of each State, when it wants to come into the Union, 
to do just as it pleases on the question of slavery. In the north, 
you find Lovejoy, their candidate for Congress in the Blooming- 
ton District, Farnsworth, their candidate in the Chicago District, 
and Washburne, their candidate in the Galena District, all 
declaring that never will they consent, under any circumstances, 
to admit another Slave State, even if the people want it. Thus, 
while they avow one set of principles up there, they avow another 
and entirely diflTerent set down here. And here let me recall to 
Mr. Lincoln the scriptural quotation which he has applied to the 
Federal Government, that a house divided against itself cannot 
stand, and ask him how does he expect this Abolition party to 
stand when in one half of the State it advocates a set of principles 
which it has repudiated in the other half? 

I am told that I have but eight minutes more. I would like 
to talk to you an hour and a half longer, but I will make the best 
use I can of the remaining eight minutes. Mr. Lincoln said in 
his first remarks that he was not in favor of the social and 
political equality of the negro with the white man. Everywhere 
up north he has declared that he was not in favor of the social 
and political equality of the negro, but he would not say whether 
or not he was opposed to negroes voting and negro citizenship. 
I want to know whether he is for or against negro citizenship. 
He declared his utter opposition to the Dred Scott decision, and 
advanced as a reason that the court had decided that it was not 
possible for a negro to be a citizen under the Constitution of the 
United States. If he is opposed to the Dred Scott decision for 
that reason, he must be in favor of conferring the right and 
privilege of citizenship upon the negro ! I have been trying to 
get an answer from him on that point, but have never yet obtained 
one, and I will show you why. In every speech he made in the 
north he quoted the Declaration of Independence to prove that 
all men were created equal, and insisted that the phrase " all 
men" included the negro as well as the white man, and that the 
equality rested upon divine law. Here is what he said on that 
point : — 

"I should like to know if, taking this old Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle, and 
making exceptions to it, where will it stop? If one man says it does 
not mean a negro, why may not another say it does not mean some 
other man? If that Declaration is not the truth, let us get the statute 
book in which we find it and tear it out." 

Lincoln maintains there that the Declaration of Independence 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 237 

asserts that the negro is equal to the white man, and that under 
divine law ; and if he believes so, it was rational for him to 
advocate negro citizenship, which, when allowed, puts the negro 
on an equality under the law. I say to you in all frankness, 
gentlemen, that in my opinion a negro is not a citizen, cannot be, 
and ought not to be, under the Constitution of the United States. 
I will not even qualify my opinion to meet the declaration of one 
of the Judges of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case, 
*' that a negro descended from African parents, who was imported 
into this country as a slave, is not a citizen, and cannot be." I 
say that this government was established on the white basis. It 
was made by white men, for the benefit of white men and th 
posterity forever, and never should be administered by a 
except white men. I declare that a negro ought not to be 
citizen, whether his parents were imported into this country 
slaves or not, or whether or not he was born here. It does not 
depend upon the place a negro's parents were born, or whether 
they were slaves or not, but upon the fact that he is a negro, 
belonging to a race incapable of self-government, and for that 
reason ought not to be on an equality with white men. 

My friends, I am sorry that I have not time to pursue this 
argument further, as I might have done, but for the fact that 
Mr. Lincoln compelled me to occupy a portion of my time in 
repelling those gross slanders and falsehoods that Trumbull has 
invented against me and put in circulation. In conclusion, let 
me ask you why should this government be divided by a geo- 
graphical line, — arraying all men North in one great hostile 
party against all men South? Mr. Lincoln tells you, in his 
speech at Springfield, "that a house divided against itself cannot 
stand ; that this Government, divided into Free and Slave States, 
cannot endure permanently ; that they must either be all free or 
all slave ; all one thing or all the other." Why cannot this 
government endure, divided into Free and Slave States, as our 
fathers made it? When this government was established by 
Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Jay, Hamilton, Franklin, and 
the other sages and patriots of that day, it was composed of Free 
States and Slave States, bound together by one common Con- 
stitution. We have existed and prospered from that day to this 
thus divided, and have increased with a rapidity never before 
equaled, in wealth, the extension of territory, and all the ele- 
ments of power and greatness, imtil we have become the first 
nation on the face of the globe. Why can we not thus continue 
to prosper? We can, if we will live up to and execute the gov- 
ernment upon those principles upon which our fathers established 
it. During the whole period of our existence. Divine Providence 
has smiled upon us, and showered upon our nation richer and 
more abundant blessings than have ever been conferred upon any 
other. 



238 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

MR. LINCOLN'S REJOINDER. 

Fellow-Citizens : It follows as a matter of course that a 
half-hour answer to a speech of an hour and a half can be but a 
very hurried one. I shall only be able to touch upon a few of 
the points suggested by Judge Douglas, and give them a brief 
attention, while I shall have to totally omit others, for the want 
of time. 

Judge Douglas has said to you that he has not been able to 
get from me an answer to the question whether I am in favor of 
negro citizenship. So far as I know, the Judge never asked me 
the question before. He shall have no occasion to ever ask it 
again, for I tell him very frankly that I am not in favor of negro 
citizenship. This furnishes me an occasion for saying a few 
words upon the subject. I mentioned, in a certain speech of 
mine which has been prtnted, that the Supreme Court had de- 
cided that a negro could not possibly be made a citizen ; and 
without saying what was my ground of complaint in regard to 
that, or whether I had any ground of complaint, Judge Douglas 
has from that thing manufactured nearly everything that he ever 
says about my disposition to produce an equality between the 
negroes and the white people. If any one will read my speech, 
he will find I mentioned that as one of the points decided in the 
course of the Supreme Court opinions, but I did not state what 
objection I had to it. But Judge Douglas tells the people what 
my objection was when I did not tell them myself? Now, my 
opinion is that the different States have the power to make a 
negro a citizen, under the Constitution of the United States, if 
they choose. The Dred Scott decision decides that they have 
not that power. If the State of Illinois had that power, I should 
be opposed to the exercise of it. That is all I have to say about it. 

Judge Douglas has told me that he heard my speeches north, 
and my speeches south ; that he had heard me at Ottawa and at 
Freeport in the north, and recently at Jonesboro in the south, 
and there was a very different cast of sentiment in the speeches 
made at the different points. I will not charge upon Judge Doug- 
las that he willfully misrepresents me, but I call upon every fair- 
minded man to take these speeches and read them, and I dare 
him to -point out any difference between my speeches north and 
south. While I am here perhaps I ought to say a word, if I have 
the time, in regard to the latter portion of the Judge's speech, 
which was a sort of declamation in reference to my having said 
I entertained the belief that this government would not endure, 
half slave and half free. I have said so, and I did not say it 
without what seemed to me to be good reasons. It perhaps 
would require more time than I have now to set forth these reasons 
in detail ; but let me ask you a few questions. Have we ever 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 239 

had any peace on this slavery question? When are we to have 
peace upon it, if it is kept in the position it now occupies? How 
are we ever to have peace upon it? That is an important ques- 
tion. To be sure, if we will all stop, and allow Judge Douglas 
and his friends to march on in their present career until they 
plant the institution all over the nation, here and wherever else 
our flag waves, and we acquiesce in it, there will be peace. But 
let me ask Judge Douglas how he is going to get the people to do 
that? They have been wrangling over this question for at least 
forty years. This was the cause of the agitation resulting in the 
Missouri Compromise ; this produced the troubles at the annex- 
ation of Texas, in the acquisition of the territory acquired in the 
Mexican War. Again, this was the trouble which was quieted 
by the Compromise of 1850, when it was settled '■^ forever^''' as 
both the great political parties declared in their National Con- 
ventions. That "forever" turned out to be just four years, when 
yudge Douglas Imnself reopened it. When is it likely to come 
to an end? He introduced the Nebraska bill in 1854 to put 
another end to the slavery agitation. He promised that it would 
finish it all up immediately, and he has never made a speech 
since, until he got into a quarrel with the President about the 
Lecompton Constitution, in which he has not declared that we 
^.ve Just at the end of the slavery agitation. But in one speech, I 
think last winter, he did say that he didn't quite see when the 
end of the slavery agitation would come. Now he tells us again 
that it is all over, and the people of Kansas have voted down the 
Lecompton Constitution. How is it over? That was only one 
of the attempts at putting an end to the slavery agitation, — one 
of these "final settlements." Is Kansas in the Union? Has she 
formed a constitution that she is likely to come in under? Is not 
the slavery agitation still an open question in that Territory? Has 
the voting down of that constitution put an end to all the trouble? 
Is that more likely to settle it than every one of these previous 
attempts to settle the slavery agitation ? Now, at this day in the 
history of the world we can no more foretell where the end of 
this slavery agitation will be than we can see the end of the world 
itself. The Nebraska-Kansas bill was introduced four years and 
a half ago, and if the agitation is ever to come to an end, we may 
say we are four years and a half nearer the end. So, too, we 
can say we are four years and a half nearer the end of the world ; 
and we can just as clearly see the end of the world as we can see 
the end of this agitation. The Kansas settlement did not con- 
clude it. If Kansas should sink to-day, and leave a great vac- 
ant space in the earth's surface, this vexed question would still 
be among us. I say, then, there is no way of putting an end to 
the slavery agitation amongst us but to put it back upon the basis 
where our fathers placed it ; no way but to keep it out of our 



240 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

new Territories, — to restrict it forever to the old States where it 
now exists. Then the public mind W// rest in the belief that it 
is in the course of ultimate extinction. That is one way of put- 
ting an end to the slavery agitation. 

The other way is for us to surrender, and let Judge Douglas 
and his friends have their way and plant slavery over all the 
States ; cease speaking of it as in any way a wrong ; regard 
slavery as one of the common matters of property, and speak of 
negroes as we do of our horses and cattle. But while it drives 
on in its state of progress as it is now driving, and as it has driven 
for the last five years, I have ventured the opinion, and I say to- 
day, that we will have no end to the slavery agitation until it 
takes one turn or the other. I do not mean that when it takes a turn 
toward ultimate extinction it will be in a day, nor in a year, nor 
in two years. I do not suppose that in the most peaceful way 
ultimate extinction would occur in less than a hundred years at 
least ; but that it will occur in the best way for both races, in God's 
own good time, I have no doubt. But, my friends, I have used 
up more of my time than I intended on this point. 

Now, in regard to this matter about Trumbull and myself 
having made a bargain to sell out the entire Whig and Demo- 
cratic parties in 1854 : Judge Douglas brings forward no 
evidence to sustain his charge, except the speech Matheny is said 
to have made in 1856, in which he told a cock-and-bull story of 
that sort, upon the same moral principles that Judge Douglas tells 
it here to-day. This is the simple truth. I do not care greatly 
for the story, but this is the truth of it ; and I have twice told 
Judge Douglas to his face that from beginning to end there is 
not one word of truth in it. I have called upon him for the 
proof, and he does not at all meet me as Trumbull met him upon 
that of which we were just talking, by producing the record. 
He didn't bring the record, because there was no record for him 
to bring. When he asks if I am ready to indorse Trumbull's 
veracity after he has broken a bargain with me, I reply that if 
Trumbull had broken a bargain with me, I would not be likely to 
indorse his veracity ; but I am read}^ to indorse his veracity 
because neither in that things no7' in any other, in all the years 
that I have known layman Trumbull, have I known him to fail of his 
word or tell a falsehood, large or small. It is for that reason that 
I indorse Lyman Trumbull. 

Mr. James Brown {Douglas Post-Master^ : What does 
Ford's History say about him? 

Mr. Lincoln : Some gentleman asks me what Ford's History 
says about him. My own recollection is, that Ford speaks of 
Trumbull in very disrespectful terms in several portions of his 
book, and that he talks a great deal worse of Judge Douglas, 
I refer you, sir, to the History for examination. 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 241 

Judge Douglas complains, at considerable length, about a 
disposition on the part of Trumbull and myself to attack him 
personally. I want to attend to that suggestion a moment. I 
don't want to be unjustly accused of dealing illiberally or un- 
fairly with an adversary, either in court, or in a political canvass, 
or anywhere else. I would despise myself if I supposed myself 
ready to deal less liberally with an adversary than I was willing 
to be treated myself. Judge Douglas, in a general way, without 
putting it in a direct shape, revives the old charge against me in 
reference to the Mexican war. He does not take the responsi- 
bility of putting it in a very definite form, but makes a general 
reference to it. That charge is more than ten years old. He 
complains of Trumbull and myself, because he says we bring 
charges against him one or two years old. He knows, too, that 
in regard to the Mexican war story, the more respectable papers 
of his own party throughout the State have been compelled to 
take it back and acknowledge that it was a lie. 

[Here Mr. Lincoln turned to the crowd on the platform, 
and, selecting Hon. Orlando B. Ficklin, led him forward, and 
said : — ] 

I do not mean to do anything with Mr. Ficklin except to 
present his face and tell you that he -personally knows it to he a 
lie! He was a member of Congress at the only time I was in 
Congress, and [Ficklin] knows that whenever there was an 
attempt to procure a vote of mine which would indorse the 
origin and justice of the war, I refused to give such indorsement, 
and voted against it ; but I never voted against the supplies for 
the arm)'-, and he knows, as well as Judge Douglas, that whenever 
a dollar was asked, by way of compensation or otherwise, for the 
benefit of the soldiers, I gave all the votes that Ficklin or Douglas 
did, and perhaps more. 

Mr. Ficklin : My friends, I wish to say this in reference to 
the matter. Mr. Lincoln and myself are just as good personal 
friends as Judge Douglas and myself. In reference to this 
Mexican war, my recollection is that when Ashmun's resolution 
[amendment] was offered by Mr. Ashmun of Massachusetts, in 
which he declared that the Mexican war was- unnecessary and 
unconstitutionally commenced by the President, — my recollection 
is that Mr. Lincoln voted for that resolution. 

Mr. Lincoln : That is the truth. Now, you all remember 
that was a resolution censuring the President for the manner in 
which the war was begun. You know they have charged that 
I voted against the supplies, by which I starved the soldiers who 
were out fighting the battles of their country. I say that Ficklin 
knows it is false. When that charge was brought forward by 
the Chicago "Times," the Springfield " Register " [Douglas's 
organ] reminded the " Times " that the charge really applied to 

32 



242 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

John Henry ; and I do know that John Henry is nozu making 
speeches and fie^-cely battling for Judge Douglas. If the Judge 
now says that he offers this as a sort of set-oft' to what I said 
to-da}^ in reference to Trumbull's charge, then I remind him that 
he made this charge before I said a word about Trumbull's. He 
brought this forward at Ottawa, the first time we met face to face ; 
and in the opening speech that Judge Douglas made, he attacked 
me in regard to a matter ten years old. Isn't he a pretty man to 
be whining about people making charges against him only two 
years old ! 

The Judge thinks it is altogether wrong that I should have 
dwelt upon this charge of Trumbull's at all. I gave the apology 
for doing so in my opening speech. Perhaps it didn't fix ^^our 
attention. I said that when Judge Douglas was speaking at 
places where I spoke on the succeeding day, he used very harsh 
language about this charge. Two or three times afterward I 
said I had confidence in Judge Trumbull's veracity and intelli- 
gence ; and my own opinion was, from what I knew of the 
character of Judge Trumbull, that he would vindicate his position, 
and prove whatever he had stated to be true. This I repeated 
two or three times ; and then I dropped it, without saying 
anything more on the subject for weeks, — perhaps a month. I 
passed it by without noticing it at all till I found, at Jacksonville, 
Judge Douglas, in the plenitude of his power, is not willing to 
answer Trumbull and let me alone, but he comes out there and 
uses this language : " He should not hereafter occupy his time in 
refuting such charges made by Trumbull, but that Lincoln, having 
indorsed the character of Trumbull for veracity, he should hold 
him [Lincoln] responsible for the slanders." What was Lincoln 
to do? Did he not do right, when he had the fit opportunity of 
meeting Judge Douglas here, to tell him he was ready for the 
responsibility? I ask a candid audience whether in doing thus 
Judge Douglas was not the assailant rather than I? Here I meet 
him face to face, and say I am ready to take the responsibility, 
so far as it rests on me. 

Having done so, I ask the attention of this audience to the 
question whether I have succeeded in sustaining the charge, and 
whether Judge Douglas has at all succeeded in rebutting it? You 
all heard me call upon him to say which of these pieces of evidence 
was a forgery? Does he say that what I present here as a copy 
of the original Toombs bill is a forgery? Does he say that what 
I present as a copy of the bill reported by himself is a forgery? 
Or what is presented as a transcript from the "Globe" of the 
quotations from Bigler's speech, is a forger}^? Does he say the 
quotations from his own speech are forgeries? Does he say this 
transcript from Trumbull's speech is a forgery? [" He didn't 
deny one of them."] I would then like to know how it comes about 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 243 

that xuhen each piece of a story is true^ the whole story turns out 
false? I take if these people have some sense ; they see plainly 
that Judge Douglas is playing cuttle-fish, — a small species of fish 
that has no mode of defending itself when pursued except by 
throwing out a black fluid, which makes the water so dark the 
enemy cannot see it, and thus it escapes. Ain't the Judge play- 
ing the cuttle-fish? 

Now, I would ask very special attention to the consideration 
of Judge Douglas's speech at Jacksonville ; and when you shall 
read his speech of to-day, I ask you to watch closely and see 
which of these pieces of testimony, every one of which he says 
is a forgery, he has shown to be such. A^ot one of thein has he 
shown to be a forgery . Then I ask the original question, if each 
of the pieces of testimony is true, how is it possible that the zuhole 
is a falsehood? 

In regard to Trumbull's charge that he [Douglas] inserted 
a provision into the bill to prevent the constitution being sub- 
mitted to the people, what was his answer? He comes here and 
reads from the "Congressional Globe" to show that on his mo- 
tion that provision was struck out of the bill. Why, Trumbull 
has not said it was not stricken out, but Trumbull says he 
[Douglas] put it in ; and it is no answer to the charge to say 
he afterward took it out. Both are perhaps true. It was in re- 
gard to that thing precisely that I told him he had dropped the 
cub. Trumbull shows you that by his introducing the bill it was 
his cub. It is no answer to that assertion to call Trumbull a liar 
merely because he did not specially say that Douglas struck it 
out. Suppose that were the case, does it answer Trumbull? I 
assert that you [pointing to an individual] are here to-day, and 
you undertake to prove me a liar by showing that you were in 
Mattoon yesterday. I say that you took your hat ofI'5'Our head, 
and 3'ou prove me a liar by putting it on your head. That is the 
whole force of Douglas's argument. 

Now, I want to come back to my original question. Trum- 
bull says that Judge Douglas had a bill with a provision in it for 
submitting a Constitution to be made to a vote of the people of 
Kansas. Does Judge Douglas deny that fact? Does he deny 
that the provision which Trumbull reads was put in that bill? 
Then Trumbull says he struck it out. Does he dare to deny 
that? He does not, and I have the right to repeat the question, 
— Why Judge Douglas took it out? Bigler has said there was a 
combination of certain senators, among whom he did not include 
Judge Douglas, by which it was agreed that the Kansas bill 
should have a clause in it not to have the constitution formed 
under it submitted to a vote of the people. He did not say that 
Douglas was among them, but we prove by another source that 
about the same time Douglas comes into the Senate zt'///^ thatfro- 
vision stricken out of the bill. Although Bigler cannot say they 



244 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

were all working in concert, yet it looks very much as if the 
thing was agreed upon and done with a mutual understanding 
after the conference ; and while we do not know that it was 
absolutely so, yet it looks so probable that we have a right to call 
upon the man who knows the true reason why it was done, to tell 
-what the true reason zuas. When he will not tell what the true 
reason was, he stands in the attitude of an accused thief who has 
stolen goods in his possession, and when called to account, re- 
fuses to tell where he got them. Not only is this the evidence, 
but when he comes in with the bill having the provision stricken 
out, he tells us in a speech, not then, but since, that these altera- 
tions and modifications in the bill had been fuade by him, in con- 
sultation zuith Toombs^ the originator of the bill. He tells us the 
same to-day. He says there were certain modifications made in 
the bill in Committee that he did not vote for. I ask you to re- 
member while certain amendments were made which he disap- 
proved of, but which a majority of the Committee voted in, he 
has himself told us that in this particular the alterations and modi- 
ficatiotis -were made by him., n^on consultation with Toombs. We 
have his own word that these alterations were made by him^ and 
not by the Committee. Now, I ask, what is the reason Judge 
Douglas is so chary about coming to the exact question ? What is 
the reason he will not tell you anything about how it was made, by 
WHOM it was made, or that he remembers it being made at all? 
Why does he stand playing upon the meaning of words, and 
quibbling around the edges of the evidence? If he can explain 
all this, but leaves it unexplained, I have a right to infer that 
Judge Douglas understood it was the purpose of his party, in 
engineering that bill through, to make a constitution, and have 
Kansas come into the Union with that constitution, without its 
being submitted to a vote of the people. If he will explain his 
action on this question, by giving a better reason for the facts 
that happened, than he has done, it will be satisfactory. But 
until he does that, — until he gives a better or more plausible 
reason than he has offered against the evidence in the case, — / 
suggest to him it will not avail him at all that he swells himself 
up, takes on dignity, and calls people liars. Why, sir, there is 
not a word in Trumbull's speech that depends on Trumbull's 
veracity at all. He has only arra3'-ed the evidence, and told you 
what follows as a matter of reasoning. There is not a statement 
in the whole speech that depends on Trumbull's word. If you 
have ever studied geometry, you remember that by a course of 
reasoning, Euclid proves that all the angles in a triangle are 
equal to two right angles. Euclid has shown you how to work 
it out. Now, if you undertake to disprove that proposition, and 
to show that it is erroneous, would 3'ou prove it to be false by 
calling Euclid a liar? They tell me that my time is out, and 



and stephen a. douglas. 245 

Extract from Mr. Trumbull's Speech made at Alton, 

REFERRED TO BY Mr. LiNCOLN IN HIS OPENING AT CHARLESTON. 

I come now to another extract from a speech of Mr. Douglas, 
made at Beardstovvn, and reported in the "Missouri Republican." 
This extract has reference to a statement made by me at Chicago, 
wherein I charged that an agreement had been entered into by the 
very persons now claiming credit for opposing a constitution not 
submitted to the people, to have a constitution formed and put in 
force without giving the people of Kansas an opportunity to pass 
upon it. Without meeting this charge, which I substantiated by a 
reference to the record, my colleague is reported to have said : — 

"For when this charge was once made in a much milder form, in 
the Senate of the United States, I did brand it as a lie in the presence 
of Mr. Trumbull, and Mr. Trumbull sat and heard it thus branded, 
without daring to say it was true. I tell you he knew it to be false 
when he uttered it at Chicago ; and yet he says he is going to cram 
the lie down his throat until he should cry enough. The miserable, 
craven-hearted wretch ! he would rather have both ears cut off than 
to use that language in my presence, where I could call him to ac- 
count. I see the object is to draw me into a personal controversy, 
with the hope thereby of concealing from the public the enormity of 
the principles to which they are committed. I shall not allow much 
of my time in this canvass to be occupied by these personal assaults : 
I have none to make on Mr. Lincoln ; I have none to make on Mr. 
Trumbull ; I have none to make on any other political opponent. If I 
cannot stand on my own public record, on my own private and public 
character as history will record it, I will not attempt to rise by traduc- 
ing the character of other men. I will not make a blackguard of my- 
self by imitating the course they have pursued against me. I have no 
charges to make against them." 

This is a singular statement, taken altogether. After indulging 
in language which would disgrace a loafer in the filthiest purlieus of 
a fish market, he winds up by saying that he will not make a black- 
guard of himself, that he has no charges to make against me. So I 
suppose he considers that to say of another that he knew a thing to 
be false when he uttered it, that he was a "miserable, craven-hearted 
wretch," does not amount to a personal assault, and does not make a 
man a blackguard. A discriminating public will judge of that for 
themselves ; but as he says he has " no charges to make on Mr. Trum- 
bull," I suppose politeness requires I should believe him. At the risk 
of again offending this mighty man of war, and losing something 
more than my ears, I shall have the audacity to again read the record 
upon him, and prove and pin upon him, so that he cannot escape it, 
the truth of every word I uttered at Chicago. You, fellow-citizens, 
are the judges to determine whether I do this. My colleague says he 
is willing to stand on his public record. By that he shall be tried; 
and if he had been able to discriminate between the exposure of a 
public act by the record, and a personal attack upon the individual, 
he would have discovered that there was nothing personal in my 
Chicago remarks, unless- the condemnation of himself by his own 



246 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

public record is personal ; and then you must judge who is most to 
blame for the torture his public record inflicts upon him, he for 
making, or I for reading it after it was made. As an individual, I 
care very little about Judge Douglas one way or the other. It is his 
public acts with which I have to do, and if they condemn, disgrace, 
and consign him to oblivion, he has only himself, not me, to blame. 

Now, the charge is that there was a plot entered into to have a 
constitution formed for Kansas, and put in force, without giving the 
people an opportunity to pass upon it, and that Mr. Douglas was in 
the plot. That is as susceptible of proof by the record as is the fact 
that the State of Minnesota was admitted into the Union at the last 
session of Congress. 

On the 25th of June, 1856, a bill was pending in the United States 
Senate to authorize the people of Kansas to form a constitution and 
come into the Union. On that day Mr. Toombs offered an amendment 
which he intended to propose to the bill which was ordered to be 
printed, and, with the original bill and other amendments, recommended 
to the Committee on Territories, of which Mr. Douglas was Chair- 
man. This amendment of Mr. Toombs, printed by order of the 
Senate, and a copy of which I have here present, provided for the 
appointment of commissioners who were to take a census of Kansas, 
divide the Territory into election districts, and superintend the election 
of delegates to form a constitution, and contains a clause in the 18th 
section which I will read to you, requiring the constitution which 
should be formed to be submitted to the people for adoption. It reads 
as follows : — 

"That the following propositions be and the same are hereby 
offered to the said Convention of the people of Kansas, when formed, 
for their free acceptance or rejection, which, if accepted by the Con- 
vention, and ratified by the people at the election for the adoption of 
the constitution, shall be obligatory on the United States, and upon 
the said State of Kansas," etc. 

It has been contended by some of the newspaper press that this 
section did not require the constitution which should be formed to be 
submitted to the people for approval, and that it was only the land 
propositions which were to be submitted. You will observe the 
language is that the propositions are to be " ratified by the people at 
the election for the adoption of the constitution.'' Would it have 
been possible to ratify the land propositions "at the election for the 
adoption of the constitution," unless such an election was to be held? 

When one thing is required by a contract or law to be done, the 
doing of which is made dependent upon and cannot be performed 
without the doing of some other thing, is not that other thing just as 
much required by the contract or law as the first? It matters not in 
what part of the Act, nor in what phraseology the intention of the 
Legislature is expressed, so you can clearly ascertain what it is ; and 
whenever that intention is ascertained from an examination of the 
language used, such intention is part of and a requirement of the law. 
Can any candid, fair-minded man read the section I have quoted, and 
say that the intention to have the constitution which should be formed 
submitted to the people for their adoption, is not clearly expressed? 
In my judgment, there can be no controversy among honest men upon 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 247 

a proposition SO plain as this. Mr. Douglas has never pretended to 
deny, so far as I am aware, that the Toombs amendment, as originally 
introduced, did require a submission of the constitution to the people. 
This amendment of Mr. Toombs was referred to the Committee of 
which ]Mr. Douglas was Chairman, and reported back by him on the 
30th of June, with the words, "And ratified by the people at the 
election for the adoption of the constitution," stricken out. I have 
here a copy of the bill as reported back by Mr. Douglas, to substantiate 
the statement I make. Various other alterations were also made in 
the bill, to which I shall presently have occasion to call attention. 
There was no other clause in the original Toombs bill requiring a 
submission of the constitution to the people than the one I have read, 
and there was no clause whatever, after that was struck out, in the 
bill, as reported back by Judge Douglas, requiring a submission. I 
will now introduce a witness whose testimony cannot be impeached, 
he acknowledging himself to have been one of the conspirators and 
privy to the fact about which he testifies. 

Senator Bigler, alluding to the Toombs bill, as it was called, and 
which, after sundry amendments, passed the Senate, and to the 
propriety of submitting the constitution which should be formed to a 
vote of the people, made the following statement in his place in the 
Senate, December 9th, 1857. I read from part 1, " Congressional 
Globe " of last session, paragraph 21 : — 

**I was present when that subject was discussed by senators, 
before th e bill was introduced, and the question was raised and 
discussed whether the constitution, when formed, should be submitted 
to a vote of the people. It was held by the most intelligent on the 
subject that in view of all the difficulties surrounding that Territory, 
the danger of any experiment at that time of a popular vote, it would 
be better that there should be no such provision in the Toombs bill ; 
and it is my understanding, in all the intercourse I had, that that 
Convention would make a constitution and send it here, without 
submitting it to the popular vote." 

In speaking of this meeting again on the 21st December, 1857 
("Congressional Globe," same volume, page 113), Senator Bigler 
said : — 

" Nothing was farther from my mind than to allude to any social 

lor confidential interview. The meeting was not of that character. 

[Indeed, it was semi-official, and called to promote the public good. 

JMy recollection was clear that I left the conference under the im- 

[pression that it had been deemed best to adopt measures to admit 

[Kan sas as a State through the agency of one popular election, and 

that for delegates to the Convention. This impression was the 

[stronger, because I thought the spirit of the bill infringed upon the 

(doctrine of non-intervention, to which I had great aversion ; but with 

I the hope of accomplishing great good, and as no movement had been 

made in that direction in the Territory, I waived this objection, and 

[concluded to support the measure. I have a few items of testimony, 

las to the correctness of these impressions, and with their submission 

I shall be content. I have before me the bill reported by the Senator 

[from Illinois, on the 7th of March, 1856, providing for the admission 

of Kansas as a State, the third section of which reads as follows : — 



248 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

"' That the following propositions be, and the same are hereby 
offered to the said Convention of the people of Kansas, when formed, 
for their free acceptance or rejection ; which, if accepted by the Con- 
vention and ratified by the people at the election for the adoption of 
the constitution, shall be obligatory upon the United States and upon 
the said State of Kansas.' 

" The bill read in place by the Senator from Georgia, on the 25th 
of June, and referred to the Committee on Territories, contained the 
same section, word for word. Both these bills were under considera- 
tion at the conference referred to ; but, sir, when the Senator from 
Illinois reported the Toombs bill to the Senate, with amendments, the 
next morning, it did not contain that portion of the third section 
which indicated to the Convention that the constitution should be 
approved by the people. The words 'and ratified by the people at 
the election for the adoption of the constitution ' had been stricken 
out." 

I am not now seeking to prove that Douglas was in the plot to force 
a constitution upon Kansas without allowing the people to vote directly 
upon it. I shall attend to that branch of the subject by and by. My 
object now is to prove the existence of the plot, what the design was, 
and I ask if I have not already done so. Here are the facts : — 

The introduction of a bill on the 7th of March, 1856, providing 
for the calling of a Convention in Kansas to form a State constitu- 
tion, and providing that the constitution should be submitted to the 
people for adoption ; an amendment to this bill, proposed by Mr. 
Toombs, containing the same requirement ; a reference of these 
various bills to the Committee on Territories ; a consultation of 
senators to determine whether it was advisable to have the constitu- 
tion submitted for ratification ; the determination that it was not 
advisable ; and a report of the bill back to the Senate next morning, 
with the clause providing for the submission stricken out. Could 
evidence be more complete to establish the first part of the charge I 
have made of a plot having been entered into by somebody, to have 
a constitution adopted without submitting it to the people? 

Now, for the other part of the charge, that Judge Douglas was 
in this plot, whether knowingly or ignorantly is not material to my 
purpose. The charge is that he was an instrument co-operating in 
the project to have a constitution formed and put into operation, 
without affording the people an opportunity to pass upon it. The 
first evidence to sustain the charge is the fact that he reported back 
the Toombs amendment, with the clause providing for the submission 
stricken out, — this in connection with his speech in the Senate on the 
9th of December, 1857 ("Congressional Globe," part 1, page 14), 
wherein he stated : — 

"That during the last Congress I [Mr. Douglas] reported a bill 
from the Committee on Territories, to authorize the people of Kansas 
to assemble and form a constitution for themselves. Subsequently 
the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Toombs) brought forward a substitute 
for my bill, which, after having been modified by him and myself in 
consultation, was passed by the Senate." 

This of itself ought to be sufficient to show that my colleague 
was an instrument in the plot to have a constitution put in force 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS'. 249 

without submitting it to the people, and to forever close his mouth 
from attempting to deny. No man can reconcile his acts and former 
declarations with his present denial, and the only charitable conclusion 
would be that he was being used by others without knowing it. 
Whether he is entitled to the benefit of even this excuse, you must 
judge on a candid hearing of the facts I shall present. When the 
charge was first made in the United States Senate, by Mr. Bigler, 
that my colleague had voted for an Enabling Act which put a govern- 
ment in operation without submitting the constitution to the people, 
my colleague ("Congressional Globe," last session, part 1, page 24) 
stated : — 

"I will ask the senator to show me an intimation from any one 
member of the Senate, in the whole debate on the Toombs bill, and 
in the Union from any quarter, that the constitution was not to be 
submitted to the people. I will venture to say that on all sides of the 
chamber it was so understood at the time. If the opponents of the 
bill had understood it was not, they would have made the point on it ; 
and if they had made it, we should certainly have yielded to it, and 
put in the clause. That is a discovery made since the President 
found out that it was not safe to take it for granted that that would 
be done which ought in fairness to have been done," 

I knew at the time this statement was made that I had urged the 
very objection to the Toombs bill two years before, that it did not 
provide for the submission of the constitution. You will find my 
remarks, made on the 2nd of July, 1856, in the appendix to the 
"Congressional Globe" of that year, page 179, urging this very 
objection. Do you ask why I did not expose him at the time? I 
will tell you : Mr. Douglas was then doing good service against the 
Lecompton iniquity. The Republicans were then engaged in a 
hand-to-hand fight with the National Democracy to prevent the 
bringing of Kansas into the Union as a Slave State against the wishes 
of its inhabitants, and of course I was unwilling to turn our guns 
from the common enemy to strike down an ally. Judge Douglas, 
however, on the same day, and in the same debate, probably recol- 
lecting, or being reminded of, the fact that I had objected to the 
Toombs bill when pending, that it did not provide for the submission 
of the constitution to the people, made another statement, which is 
to be found in the same volume of the "Congressional Globe," page 
22, in which he says : — 

"That the bill was silent on the subject is true, and my attention 
was called to that about the time it was passed ; and I took the fair 
construction to be, that powers not delegated were reserved, and that 
of course the constitution would be submitted to the people," 

Whether this statement is consistent with the statement just 
before made, that had the point been made it would have been yielded 
to, or that it was a new discovery, you will determine ; for if the 
public records do not convict and condemn him, he may go uncon- 
demned, so far as I am concerned. I make no use here of the 
testimony of Senator Bigler to show that Judge Douglas must have 
been privy to the consultation held at his house, when it was 
determined not to submit the constitution to the people, because 

33 



250 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Judge Douglas denies it, and I wish to use his own acts and declara- 
tions, which are abundantly sufficient for my purpose. 

I come to a piece of testimony which disposes of all these various 
pretences which have been set up for striking out of the original 
Toombs proposition the clause requiring a submission of the constitu- 
tion to the people, and shows that it was not done either by accident, 
by inadvertence, or because it was believed that, the bill being silent 
on the subject, the constitution would necessarily be submitted to the 
people for approval. What will you think, after listening to the 
facts already presented, to show that there was a design with those 
who concocted the Toombs bill, as amended, not to submit the 
constitution to the people, if I now bring before you the amended 
bill as Judge Douglas reported it back, and show the clause of the 
origmal bill requiring submission was not only struck out, but that 
other clauses were inserted in the bill, putting it absolutely out of the 
power of the Convention to submit the constitution to the people for 
approval, had they desired to do so? If I can produce such evidence 
as that, will you not all agree that it clinches and establishes forever 
all I charged at Chicago, and more too? 

I propose now to furnish that evidence. It will be remembered 
that Mr. Toombs's bill provided for holding an election for delegates 
to form a constitution under the supervision of commissioners to be 
appointed by the President ; and in the bill as reported back by 
Judge Douglas, these words, 7iot to be found in the original bill, are 
inserted at the close of the 11th section, viz. : — 

"And until the complete execution of this Act, no other election 
shall be held in said Territory." 

This clause put it out of the power of the Convention to refer to 
the people for adoption ; it absolutely prohibited the holding of any 
other election than that for the election of delegates, till that Act 
was completely executed, which would not have been until Kansas 
was admitted as a State, or at all events till her constitution was fully 
prepared and ready for submission to Congress for admission. Other 
amendments reported by Judge Douglas to the original Toombs bill 
clearly show that the intention was to enable Kansas to become a 
State without any further action than simply a resolution of admission. 
The amendment reported by Mr. Douglas, that "until the next 
Congressional apportionment, the said State shall have one representa- 
tive," clearly shows this, no such provision being contained in the 
original Toombs bill. For what other earthly purpose could the 
clause to prevent any other election in Kansas, except that of 
delegates, till it was admitted as a State, have been inserted, except 
to prevent a submission of the Constitution, when formed, to the 
people ? 

The Toombs bill did not pass in the exact shape in which Judge 
Douglas reported it. Several amendments were made to it in the 
Senate. I am now dealing with the action of Judge Douglas as con- 
nected with that bill, and speak of the bill as he recommended it. 
The facts I have stated in regard to this matter appear upon the records, 
which I have here present to show to any man who wishes to look 
at them. They establish beyond the power of controversy all the 
charges I have made, and show that Judge Douglas was made use of 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 251 

as an instrument by others, or else knowingly was a party to the 
scheme to have a government put in force over the people of Kansas, 
without giving them an opportunity to pass upon it. That others 
high in position in the so-called Democratic party were parties to 
such a scheme is confessed by Governor Bigler ; and the only reason 
why the scheme was not carried, and Kansas long ago forced into the 
Union as a Slave State, is the fact, that the Republicans were 
sufficiently strong in the House of Representatives to defeat the 
measure. 



Extract from Mr. Douglas's Speech made at Jacksonville, 

AND REFERRED TO BY Mr. LiNCOLN IN HIS OPENING 

AT Charleston. 

I have been reminded by a friend behind me that there is another 
topic upon which there has been a desire expressed that I should 
speak. I am told that Mr. Lyman Trumbull, who has the good 
fortune to hold a seat in the United States Senate, in violation of the 
bargain between him and Lincoln, was here the other day and occu- 
pied his time in making certain charges against me, involving, if they 
be true, moral turpitude. I am also informed that the charges he 
made here were substantially the same as those made by him in the 
city of Chicago, which were printed in the newspapers of that city. 
I now propose to answer those charges and to annihilate every pretext 
that an honest man has ever had for repeating them. 

In order that I may meet these charges fairly, I will read them, as 
made by Mr. Trumbull, in his Chicago speech, in his own language. 
He says : — 

" Now, fellow-citizens, I make the distinct charge that there was 
a preconcerted arrangement and plot entered into by the very men 
who now claim credit for opposing a constitution not submitted to the 
people, to have a constitution formed and put in force without giving 
the people an opportunity to pass upon it. This, my friends, is a 
serious charge, but I charge it to-night that the very men who traverse 
the country under banners proclaiming popular sovereignty, by design 
concocted a bill on purpose to force a constitution upon that people." 

Again, speaking to some one in the crowd, he says : — 

" And you want to satisfy yourself that he was in the plot to 
force a constitution upon that people? I will satisfy you. I will 
cram the truth down any honest man's throat until he cannot deny it, 
and to the man who does deny it I will cram the lie down his throat 
till he shall cry, 'Enough!' It is preposterous; it is the most 
damnable effrontery that man ever put on to conceal a scheme to de- 
fraud and cheat the people out of their rights, and then claim credit 
for it." 

That is polite and decent language for a senator of the United 
States. Remember that that language was used without any pro- 
vocation whatever from me. I had not alluded to him in any manner 
in any speech that I had made, hence without provocation. As soon as 
he sets his foot within the State, he makes the direct charge that I 
was a party to a plot to force a constitution upon the people of Kansas 



252 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

against their will, and, knowing that it would be denied, he talks 
about cramming the lie down the throat of any man who shall deny 
it, until he cries, " Enough." 

Why did he take it for granted that it would be denied, unless 
he knew it to be false? Why did he deem it necessary to make a 
threat in advance that he would "cram the lie " down the throat of 
any man that should deny it? I have no doubt that the entire Aboli- 
tion party consider it very polite for Mr. Trumbull to go round 
uttering calumnies of that kind, bullying, and talking of cramming 
lies down men's throats; but if I deny any of his lies by calling him 
a liar, they are shocked at the indecency of the language; hence, 
to-day, instead of calling him a liar I intend to prove that he is one. 

I wish, in the first place, to refer to the evidence adduced by 
Trumbull, at Chicago, to sustain his charge. He there declared that 
Mr. Toombs, of Georgia, introduced a bill into Congress authorizing 
the people of Kansas to form a constitution and come into the Union, 
that when introduced it contained a clause requiring the constitution 
to be submitted to the people, and that I struck out the words of that 
clause. 

Suppose it were true that there was such a clause in the bill, and that 
I struck it out, is that proof of a plot to force a constitution upon a 
people against their will? Bear in mind that from the days of George 
Washington to the Administration of Franklin Pierce, there had 
never been passed by Congress a bill requiring the submission of a 
constitution to the people. If Trumbull's charge, that I struck out 
that clause, were true, it would only prove that I had reported the 
bill in the exact shape of every bill of like character that passed under 
Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, or any other 
President, to the time of the then present Administration, I ask you, 
would that be evidence of a design to force a constitution on a people 
against their will? If it were so, it would be evidence against 
Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, Van Buren, and every 
other President. 

But, upon examination, it turns out that the Toombs bill never 
did contain a clause requiring the constitution to be submitted. 
Hence no such clause was ever stricken out, by me or anybody else. 
It is true, however, that the Toombs bill and its authors all took it for 
granted that the constitution would be submitted. There had never 
been, in the history of this government, any attempt made to force 
a constitution upon an unwilling people, and nobody dreamed that 
any such attempt would be made, or deemed it necessary to provide 
for such a contingency. If such a clause was necessary in Mr. 
Trumbull's opinion, why did he not offer an amendment to that effect ? 

In order to give more pertinency to that question, I will read an 
extract from Trumbull's speech in the Senate, on the Toombs bill, 
made on the 2nd of July, 1856. He said : — 

" We are asked to amend this bill and make it perfect, and a 
liberal spirit seems to be manifested on the part of some senators to 
have a fair bill. It is difficult, I admit, to frame a bill that will give 
satisfaction to all, but to approach it, or come near it, I think two 
things must be done." 

The first, then, he goes on to say, was the application of the 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 253 

Wilmot Proviso to the Territories, and the second the repeal of all 
the laws passed by the Territorial Legislature. He did not then say- 
that it was necessary to put in a clause requiring the submission of 
the constitution. Why, if he thought such a provision necessary, 
did he not introduce it.-* He says in his speech that he was invited 
to offer amendments. Why did he not do so? He cannot pretend 
that he had no chance to do this, for he did offer some amendments, 
but none requiring submission. 

I now proceed to show that Mr. Trumbull knew at the time that 
the bill was silent as to the subject of submission, and also that he, 
and everybody else, took it for granted that the constitution would be 
submitted. Now for the evidence. In his second speech he says : 
" The bill in many of its features meets my approbation." So he did 
not think it so very bad. 

Further on he says : — 

" In regard to the measure introduced by the senator from 
Georgia [Mr. Toombs], and recommended by the Committee, I regard 
it, in many respects, as a most excellent bill ; but we must look at it 
in the light of surrounding circumstances. In the condition of things 
now existing in the country, I do not consider it as a safe measure, 
nor one which will give peace ; and I will give my reasons. First, it 
affords no immediate relief. It provides for taking a census of the 
voters in the Territory for an election in November, and the 
assembling of a Convention in December, to form, if it thinks proper, 
a Constitution for Kansas, preparatory to its admission into the 
Union as a State. It is not until December that the Convention is to 
meet. It would take some time to form a constitution. I suppose 
that constitution -would have to be ratified by the people bcfoj-e it 
becomes valid. " 

He there expressly declared that he supposed, under the bill, the 
constitution would have to be submitted to the people before it be- 
came valid. He went on to say : — 

"No provision is made in this bill for such a ratification. This 
is objectionable to my mind. I do not think the people should be 
bound by a constitution, without passing upon it directly, themselves." 

Why did he not offer an amendment providing for such a sub- 
mission, if he thought it necessary? Notwithstanding the absence of 
such a clause, he took it for granted that the constitution would have 
to be ratified by the people, under the bill. 

In another part of the same speech, he says : — 

"There is nothing said in this bill, so far as I have discovered, 
about submitting the constitution which is to be framed, to the peo- 
ple, for their sanction or rejection. Perhaps the Convention would 
have the right to submit it, if it should think proper; but it is cer- 
tainly not compelled to do so, according to the provisions of the bill. 
If it is to be submitted to the people, it will take time, and it will not 
be until some time next year that this new constitution, affirmed and 
ratified by the people, would be submitted here to Congress for its 
acceptance ; and what is to be the condition of that people in the 
mean time? 

You see that his argument then was that the Toombs bill would 
not get Kansas into the Union quick enough, and was objectionable 



254 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

on that account. He had no fears about this submission, or why did 
he not introduce an amendment to meet the case? 

A voice : Why didn't you? You were Chairman of the Com- 
mittee. 

Mr. Douglas : I will answer that question for you. 

In the first place, no provision had ever before been put in any 
similar Act passed by Congress. I did not suppose that there was an 
honest man who would pretend that the omission of such a clause fur- 
nished evidence of a conspiracy or attempt to impose on the people. 
It could not be expected that such of us as did not think that omission 
was evidence of such a scheme would offer such an amendment ; but 
if Trumbull then believed what he now says, why did he not offer the 
amendment, and try to prevent it, when he was, as he says, invited 
to do so? 

In this connection I will tell you what the main point of discus- 
sion was : There was a bill pending to admit Kansas whenever she 
should have a population of 98,420, that being the ratio required for a 
member of Congress. Under that bill Kansas could not have become 
a State for some years, because she could not have had the requisite 
population. Mr. Toombs took it into his head to bring in a bill to 
admit Kansas then, with only twenty-five or thirty thousand people, 
and the question was whether vv^e would allow Kansas to come in 
under this bill, or keep her out under mine until she had 93,420 people. 
The Committee considered that question, and overruled me, by decid- 
ing in favor of the immediate admission of Kansas, and I reported 
accordingly. I hold in my hand a copy of the report which I made at 
that time. I will read from it : 

" The point upon which your Committee have entertained the 
most serious and grave doubts in regard to the propriety of indorsing 
the proposition, relates to the fact that, in the absence of any census 
of the inhabitants, there is reason to apprehend that the Territory 
does not contain sufficient population to entitle them to demand 
admission under the treaty with France, if we take the ratio of repre- 
sentation for a member of Congress as the rule." 

Thus you see that in the written report accompanying the bill, 
I said that the great difficulty with the Committee was the question 
of population. In the same report I happened to refer to the question 
of submission. Now, listen to what I said about that : — 

" In the opinion of your Committee, whenever a constitution 
shall be formed in any Territory, preparatory to its admission into the 
Union as a State, justice, the genius of our institutions, the whole 
theory of our republican system, imperatively demand that the voice 
of the people shall be fairly expressed, and their will embodied in that 
fundamental law, without fraud, or violence, or intimidation, or any 
other improper or unlawful influence, and subject to no other restric- 
tions than those imposed by the Constitution of the United States." 

I read this from the report I made at the time, on the Toombs 
bill. I will read yet another passage from the same report ; after 
setting out the features of the Toombs bill, I contrast it with the 
proposition of Senator Seward, saying: — 

" The revised proposition of the Senator from Georgia refers all 
matters in dispute to the decision of the present population, with 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 255 

guarantees of fairness and safeguards against frauds and violence to 
which no reasonable man can find just grounds of exception ; while 
the Senator from New York, if his proposition is designed to recog- 
nize and impart vitality to the Topeka Constitution, proposes to dis- 
franchise, not only all the emigrants who have arrived in the Terri- 
tory this year, but all the law-abiding men who refused to join in the 
act of open rebellion against the constituted authorities of the Terri- 
tory last year, by making the unauthorized and unlawful action of a 
political party the fundamental law of the whole people." 

Then, again, I repeat that under that bill the question is to be 
referred to the present population to decide for or against coming 
into the Union under the constitution they may adopt. 

Mr. Trumbull, when at Chicago, rested his charge upon the alle- 
gation that the clause requiring submission was originally in the bill, 
and was stricken out by me. When that falsehood was exposed by a 
publication of the record, he went to Alton and made another speech, 
repeating the charge and referring to other and different evidence to 
sustain it. He saw that he was caught in his first falsehood, so he 
changed the issue, and instead of resting upon the allegation of strik- 
ing out, he made it rest upon the declaration that I had introduced a 
clause into the bill prohibiting the people from voting upon the con- 
stitution. I am told that he made the same charge here that he made 
at Alton, that I had actually introduced and incorporated into the 
bill a clause which prohibited the people from voting upon their con- 
stitution. I hold his Alton speech in my hand, and will read the 
amendment which he alleges that I offered. It is in these words : — 

" And until the complete execution of this Act, no other election 
shall be held in said Territory." 

Trumbull says the object of that amendment was to prevent the 
Convention from submitting the constitution to a vote of the people. 
I will read what he said at Alton on that subject : — 

" This clause put it out of the power of the Convention, had it 
been so disposed, to submit the constitution to the people for adoption ; 
for it absolutely prohibited the holding of any other election than that 
for the election of delegates, till that Act was completely executed, 
which would not have been till Kansas was admitted as a State, or, 
at all events, till her constitution was fully prepared and ready for 
submission to Congress for admission. 

Now, do you suppose that Mr. Trumbull supposed that that 
clause prohibited the Convention from submitting the constitution to 
the people, when, in his speech in the Senate, he declared that the 
Convention had a right to submit it? In his Alton speech, as will be 
seen by the extract which I have read, he declared that the clause put 
it out of the power of the Convention to submit the constitution, and 
in his speech in the Senate he said : — 

"There is nothing said in this bill, so far as I have discovered, 
about submitting the constitution which is to be formed, to the people, 
for their sanction or rejection. Perhaps the Convention could have 
the right to submit it, if it should think proper, but it is certainly not 
compelled to do so according to the provisions of the bill." 

Thus you see that, in Congress, he declared the bill to be silent 
on the subject, and a few days since, at Alton, he made a speech and 
said that there was a provision in the bill prohibiting submission. 



256 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

I have two answers to make to that. In the first place, the 
amendment which he quotes as depriving the people of an opportunity 
to vote upon the constitution ivas stricken out on my motion, — abso- 
lutely stricken out, and not voted on at all! In the second place, in 
lieu of it, a provision was voted in, authorizing the Convention to 
order an election whenever it pleased, I will read. After Trumbull 
had made his speech in the Senate, declaring that the constitution 
would probably be submitted to the people, although the bill was 
silent upon that subject, I made a few remarks, and offered two 
amendments, which you may find in the Appendix to the "Congres- 
sional Globe," volume thirty-three, first session of the Thirty-fourth 
Congress, page 795. I quote : — 

"Mr. Douglas : I have an amendment to offer from the Com- 
mittee on Territories. On page 8, section 11, strike out the 'words 
'until the complete execution of this act no other election shall be 
held in said Territory,' and insert the amendment which I hold in my 
hand." 

The amendment was as follows : — 

"That all persons who shall possess the other qualifications pre- 
scribed for voters under this Act, and who shall have been bona fide 
inhabitants of said Territory since its organization, and who shall have 
absented themselves therefrom in consequence of the disturbances 
therein, and who shall return before the first day of October next, 
and become bona fide inhabitants of the Territory, with the intent of 
making it their permanent home, and shall present satisfactory evi- 
dence of these facts to the Board of Commissioners, shall be 
entitled to vote at said election, and shall have their names placed on 
said corrected list of voters for that purpose." 

That amendment was adopted unanimously. After its adoption, the 
record shows the following : — 

"Mr. Douglas : I have another amendment to offer from the 
Committee, to follow the one which has been adopted. The bill reads 
now, 'And until the complete execution of this Act, no other election 
shall be held in said Territory.' It has been suggested that it should 
be modified in this way, 'And to avoid all conflict in the complete 
execution of this Act, all other elections in said Territory are hereby 
postponed until such time as said Convention shall appoint,' so that 
they can appoint the day in the event that there should be a failure 
to come into the Union." 

This amendment was also agreed to, without dissent. 

Thus you see that the amendment quoted by Trumbull at Alton 
as evidence against me, instead of being put into the bill by me, was 
stricken out on my motion, and never became a part thereof at all. 
You also see that the substituted clause expressly authorized the Con- 
vention to appoint such day of election as it should deem proper. 

Mr. Trumbull when he made that speech knew these facts. He 
forged his evidence from beginning to end, and by falsifying the 
record he endeavors to bolster up his false charge. I ask you what 
you think of Trumbull thus going around the country, falsifying and 
garbling the public records. I ask you whether you will sustain a 
man who will descend to the infamy of such conduct. 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 257 

Mr. Douglas proceeded to remark that he should not hereafter 
occupy his time in refuting such charges made by Trumbull, but that, 
Lincoln having indorsed the character of Trumbull for veracity, he 
should hold him [Lincoln] responsible for the slanders. 



FIFTH JOINT DEBATE, AT GALESBURGH, 

October 7, 1858. 
MR. DOUGLAS'S SPEECH. 

Ladies and Gentlemen : Four years ago I appeared before 
the people of Knox County for the purpose of defending my 
political action upon the Compromise Measures of 1850 and the 
passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. Those of you before me 
who were present then will remember that I vindicated myself 
for supporting those two measures by the fact that they rested 
upon the great fundamental principle that the people of each 
State and each Territory of this Union have the right, and ought 
to be permitted to exercise the right, of regulating their own 
domestic concerns in their own way, subject to no other limita- 
tion or restriction than that which the Constitution of the United 
States imposes upon them. I then called upon the people of 
Illinois to decide whether that principle of self-government was 
right or wrong. If it was and is right, then the Compromise 
Measures of 1850 were right, and consequently, the Kansas and 
Nebraska bill, based upon the same principle, must necessarily 
have been right. 

The Kansas and Nebraska bill declared, in so many words, 
that it was the true intent and meaning of the Act not to legislate 
slavery into any State or Territory, nor to exclude it therefrom, 
but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regu- 
late their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to 
the Constitution of the United States. For the last four years I 
have devoted all my energies, in private and public, to commend 
that principle to the American people. Whatever else may be 
said in condemnation or support of my political course, I appre- 
hend that no honest man will doubt the fidelity with which, under 
all circumstances, I have stood by it. 

During the last year a question arose in the Congress of the 
United States whether or not that principle would be violated 
by the admission of Kansas into the Union under the Lecompton 
Constitution. In my opinion, the attempt to force Kansas in 
under that constitution was a gross violation of the principle 
enunciated in the Compromise Measures of 1850, and Kansas 

34 



258 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

and Nebraska bill of 1854, and therefore I led oft' in the fight 
against the Lecompton Constitution, and conducted it until the 
effort to carry that constitution through Congress was abandoned. 
And I can appeal to all men, friends and foes, Democrats and 
Republicans, Northern men and Southern men, that during the 
whole of that fight I carried the banner of Popular Sovereignty 
aloft, and never allowed it to trail in the dust, or lowered my 
flag until victory perched upon our arms. When the Le- 
compton Constitution was defeated, the question arose in 
the minds of those who had advocated it what they should next 
resort to 'in order to carry out their views. They devised a 
measure known as the English bill, and granted a general am- 
nesty and political pardon to all men who had fought against 
the Lecompton Constitution, provided they would support 
that bill. I for one did not choose to accept the pardon, 
or to avail myself of the amnesty granted on that condi- 
tion. The fact that the supporters of Lecompton were wil- 
ling to forgive all differences of opinion at that time in 
the event those who opposed it favored the English bill, was 
an admission they did not think that opposition to Lecompton 
impaired a man's standing in the Democratic party. Now, the 
question arises, what was that English bill which certain men are 
now attempting to make a test of political orthodoxy in this 
country? It provided, in substance, that the Lecompton Consti- 
tution should be sent back to the people of Kansas for their 
adoption or rejection, at an election which was held in August 
last, and in case they refused admission under it, that Kansas 
should be kept out of the Union until she had 93,420 inhabitants. 
I was in favor of sending the constitution back in order to enable 
the people to say whether or not it was their act and deed, and 
embodied their will ; but the other proposition, that if they 
refused to come into the Union under it, they should be kept out 
until they had double or treble the population they then had, I 
never would sanction by my vote. The reason why I could not 
sanction it is to be found in the fact that by the English bill, if 
the people of Kansas had only agreed to become a slaveholding 
State under the Lecompton Constitution, they could have done 
so with 35,000 people, but if they insisted on being a Free State, 
as they had a right to do, then they were to be punished by 
being kept out of the Union until they had nearly three times 
that population. I then said in my place in the Senate, as 
I now say to you, that whenever Kansas has population enough 
for a Slave State she has population enough for a Free State. 
I have never yet given a vote, and I never intend to record 
one, making an odious and unjust distinction between the 
different States of this Union. I hold it to be a fundamental 
principle in our republican form of government that all the 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 259 

States of this Union, old and new, free and slave, stand on an 
exact equality. Equality among the different States is a 
cardinal principle on which all our institutions rest. Wherever, 
therefore, you make a discrimination, saying to a Slave State 
that it shall be admitted with 35,000 inhabitants, and a Free 
State that it shall not be admitted until it has 93,000 or 100,000 
inhabitants, you are throwing the whole weight of the Federal 
Government into the scale in favor of one class of States against 
the other. Nor would I, on the other hand, any sooner sanction 
the doctrine that a Free State could be admitted into the Union 
with 35,000 people, while a Slave State was kept out until it had 
93,000. I have always declared in the Senate my willingness, 
and I am willing now to adopt the rule, that no Territory shall 
ever become a State until it has the requisite population for a 
member of Congress, according to the then existing ratio. But 
while I have always been, and am now, willing to adopt 
that general rule, I was not willing and would not consent 
to make an exception of Kansas, as a punishment for her 
obstinacy in demanding the right to do as she pleased in the 
formation of her constitution. It is proper that I should 
remark here, that my opposition to the Lecompton Constitution 
did not rest upon the peculiar position taken by Kansas on 
the subject of slavery. I held then, and hold now, that if the 
people of Kansas want a Slave State, it is their right to make 
one, and be received into the Union under it ; if, on the 
contrary, they want a Free State, it is their right to have it, and 
no man should ever oppose their admission because they ask it 
under the one or the other. I hold to that great principle of self- 
government which asserts the right of every people to decide for 
themselves the nature and character of the domestic institutions 
and fundamental law under which they are to live. 

The effort has been and is now being made in this State by 
certain postmasters and other Federal office-holders to make a 
test of faith on the support of the English bill. These men are 
now making speeches all over the State against me and in favor 
of Lincoln, either directly or indirectly, because I would not 
sanction a discrimination between Slave and Free States by 
voting for the English bill. But while that bill is made a test in 
Illinois for the purpose of breaking up the Democratic organiza- 
tion in this State, how is it in the other States? Go to Indiana, 
and there you find English himself, the author of the English 
bill, who is a candidate for re-election to Congress, has been 
forced by public opinion to abandon his own darling project, 
and to give a promise that he will vote for the admission of 
Kansas at once, whenever she forms a constitution in pursuance 
of law, and ratifies it by a majority vote of her people. Not 
only is this the case with English himself, but I am informed 



2G0 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

that every Democratic candidate for Congress in Indiana takes 
the same ground. Pass to Ohio, and there you find that 
Groesbeck, and Pendleton, and Cox, and all the other anti- 
Lecompton men who stood shoulder to shoulder with me against 
the Lecompton Constitution, but voted for the English bill, now 
repudiate it and take the same ground that I do on that question. 
So it is with the Joneses and others of Pennsylvania, and so it is 
with every other Lecompton Democrat in the Free States. They 
now abandon even the English bill, and come back to the true 
platform which I proclaimed at the time in the Senate, and upon 
which the Democracy of Illinois now stand. And yet, notwith- 
standing the fact that every Lecompton and anti-Lecompton 
Democrat in the Free States has abandoned the English bill, you 
are told that it is to be made a test upon me, while the power and 
patronage of the Government are all exerted to elect men to 
Congress in the other States who occupy the same position with 
reference to it that I do. It seems that my political offence 
consists in the fact that I first did not vote for the English bill, 
and thus pledge myself to keep Kansas out of the Union until 
she has a population of 93,420, and then return home, violate 
that pledge, repudiate the bill, and take the opposite ground. If 
I had done this, perhaps the Administration would now be 
advocating my re-election, as it is that of the others who have 
pursued this course. I did not choose to give that pledge, for 
the reason that I did not intend to carry out that principle. I 
never will consent, for the sake of conciliating the frowns -of 
power, to pledge myself to do that which I do not intend to 
perform. I now submit the question to you, as my constituency, 
whether I was not right, first, in resisting the adoption of the 
Lecompton Constitution, and, secondly, in resisting the English 
bill. I repeat that I opposed the Lecompton Constitution 
because it was not the act and deed of the people of Kansas, 
and did not embody their will. I denied the right of an}" power 
on earth, under our system of government, to force a constitution 
on an unwilling people. There was a time when some men 
could pretend to believe that the Lecompton Constitution 
embodied the will of the people of Kansas ; but that time has 
passed. The question was referred to the people of Kansas 
under the English bill last August, and then, at a fair election, 
they rejected the Lecompton Constitution by a vote of from eight 
to ten against it to one in its favor. Since it has been voted 
down by so overwhelming a majority, no man can pretend that 
it was the act and deed of that people. I submit the question to 
you whether or not, if it had not been for me, that constitution 
would have been crammed down the throats of the people of 
Kansas against their consent. While at least ninety-nine out of 
every hundred people here present agree that I was right in 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 261 

defeating that project, yet m}^ enemies use the fact that I 
did defeat it by doing right, to break me down and put 
another man in the United States Senate in my place. The 
very men who acknowledge that I was right in defeating 
Lecompton now form an alliance with Federal office-holders, 
professed Lecompton men, to defeat me, because I did right. 
My political opponent, Mr. Lincoln, has no hope on earth, 
and has never dreamed that he had a chance of success, 
were it not for the aid that he is receiving from Federal 
office-holders, who are using their influence and the patronage 
of the Government against me in revenge for my having 
defeated the Lecompton Constitution. What do 3'ou Repub- 
licans think of a political organization that will try to make an 
unholy and unnatural combination with its professed foes to beat 
a man merely because he has done right? You know such is 
the fact with regard to your own party. You know that the axe 
of decapitation is suspended over every man in office in Illinois, 
and the terror of proscription is threatened every Democrat by 
the present Administration, unless he supports the Republican 
ticket in preference to my Democratic associates and mj'^self. I 
could find an instance in the postmaster of the city of Gales- 
burgh, and in every other postmaster in this vicinity, all of whom 
have been stricken down simply because they discharged the 
duties of their offices honestly, and supported the regular Demo- 
cratic ticket in this State in the right. The Republican party is 
availing itself of unworthy means in the present contest to carry 
the election, because its leaders know that if they let this chance 
slip they will never have another, and their hopes of making 
this a Republican State will be blasted forever. 

Now, let me ask 3'ou whether the country has any interest 
in sustaining this organization, known as the Republican party. 
That party is unlike all other political organizations in this 
country. All other parties have been national in their character, — 
have avowed their principles alike in the Slave and Free States, 
in Kentucky as well as Illinois, in Louisiana as well as in 
Massachusetts. Such was the case with the old Whig party, 
and such was and is the case with the Democratic party. Whigs 
and Democrats could proclaim their principles boldly and fear- 
lessly in the North and in the South, in the East and in the West, 
wherever the Constitution ruled, and the American flag waved 
over American soil. 

But now you have a sectional organization, a party which 
appeals to the Northern section of the Union against the 
Southern, a party which appeals to Northern passion. 
Northern pride. Northern ambition, and Northern preju- 
dices, against Southern people, the Southern States, and 
Southern institutions. The leaders of that party hope that 



262 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

they will be able to unite the Northern States in one 
great sectional party ; and inasmuch as the North is the 
strongest section, that they will thus be enabled to out-vote, con- 
quer, govern and control the South. Hence you find that they 
now make speeches advocating principles and measures which 
cannot be defended in any slaveholding State of this Union. Is 
there a Republican residing in Galesburgh who can travel into 
Kentucky and carry his principles with him across the Ohio? 
What Republican from Massachusetts can visit the Old Dominion 
without leaving his principles behind him when he crosses Mason 
and Dixon's line? Permit me to say to you in perfect good- 
humor, but in all sincerity, that no political creed is sound which 
cannot be proclaimed fearlessly in every State of this Union 
where the Federal Constitution is the supreme law of the land. 
Not only is this Republican party unable to proclaim its prin- 
ciples alike in the North and South, in the Free States and in 
the Slave States, but it cannot even proclaim them in the same 
forms and give them the same strength and meaning in all parts 
of the same State. My friend Lincoln finds -it extremely diffi- 
cult to manage a debate in the center part of the State, where 
there is a mixture of men from the North and the South. In 
the extreme northern part of Illinois he can proclaim as bold and 
radical Abolitionism as ever Giddings, Lovejo}^ or Garrison 
enunciated ; but when he gets down a little further south he 
clams that he is an old line Whig, a disciple of Henry Clay, 
and declares that he still adheres to the old line Whig creed, and 
has nothing whatever to do with Abolitionism, or negro equality, 
or negro citizenship. I once before hinted this of Mr. Lincoln 
in a public speech, and at Charleston he defied me to show that 
there was any difference between his speeches in the North and 
in the South, and that they were not in strict harmony. I will 
now call your attention to two of them, and you can then say 
whether you would be apt to believe that the same man ever 
uttered both. In a speech in reply to me at Chicago in July last, 
Mr. Lincoln, in speaking of the equality of the negro with the 
white man, used the following language : — 

" I should like to know, if, taking this old Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle, and 
making exceptions to it, where will it stop? If one man says it does 
not mean a negro, why may not another man say it does not mean 
another man? If the Declaration is not the truth, let us get the 
statute book in which we find it, and tear it out. Who is so bold as 
to do it? If it is not true, let us tear it out." 

You find that Mr. Lincoln there proposed that if the doc- 
trine of the Declaration of Independence, declaring all men to 
be born equal, did not include the negro and put him on an 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 263 

equality with the white man, that we should take the statute 
book and tear it out. He there took the ground that the negro 
race is included in the Declaration of Independence as the equal 
of the white race, and that there could be no such thing as a dis- 
tinction in the races, making one superior and the other inferior. 
I read now from the same speech : — 

*' My friends [he says], I have detained you about as long as I 
desire to do, and I have only to say, let us discard all this quibbling 
about this man and the other man, this race and that race and the 
other race being inferior, and therefore they must be placed in an 
inferior position, discarding our standard that we have left us. Let 
us discard all these things, and unite as one people throughout this 
land, until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are 
created equal." 

[" That's right," etc.] 

Yes, I have no doubt that you think it is right ; but the Lin- 
coln men down in Coles, Tazewell, and Sangamon counties do 
not think it is right. In the conclusion of the same speech, 
talking to the Chicago Abolitionists, he said: "I leave you, 
hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until 
there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created free 
and equal." [" Good, good."] Well, you say good to that, and 
you are going to vote for Lincoln because he holds that doctrine. 
I will not blame you for supporting him on that ground, but I 
will show you, in immediate contrast with that doctrine, what 
Mr. Lincoln said down in Egypt in order to get votes in that 
locality, where they do not hold to such a doctrine. In a joint 
discussion between Mr. Lincoln and myself, at Charleston, I 
think, on the 18th of last month, Mr. Lincoln, referring to this 
subject, used the following language : 

" I will say then, that I am not, nor never have been, in favor 
of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the 
white and black races; that I am not, nor never have been, in favor 
of making voters of the free negroes, or jurors, or qualifying them to 
hold office, or having them to marry with white people. I will say, in 
addition, that there is a physical difference between the white and 
black races which, I suppose, will forever forbid the two races living 
together upon terms of social and political equality ; and inasmuch as 
they cannot so live, that while they do remain together there 
must be the position of superior and inferior, that I as much as any 
other man am in favor of the superior position being assigned to the 
white man." 

["Good for Lincoln."] 

Fellow-citizens, here you find men hurraing for Lincoln, and 
saying that he did right, when in one part of the State he stood 
up for negro equality, and in another part, for political effect, 
discarded the doctrine, and declared that there always must be a 



264 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

superior and inferior race. Abolitionists up North are expected 
and required to vote for Lincoln because he goes for the equality 
of the races, holding that by the Declaration of Independence 
the white man and the negro were created equal, and endowed 
by the divine law with that equality, and down South he tells the 
old Whigs, the Kentuckians, Virginians, and Tennesseeans, that 
there is a physical difference in the races, making one superior 
and the other inferior, and that he is in favor of maintaining the 
superiority of the white race over the negro. Now, how can 
you reconcile those two positions of Mr. Lincoln? He is to be 
voted for in the South as a pro-slavery man, and he is to be voted 
for in the North as an Abolitionist. Up here he thinks it is all 
nonsense to talk about a difference between the races, and says 
that we must " discard all quibbling about this race and that race 
and the other race being inferior, and therefore they must be 
placed in an inferior position." Down South he makes this 
" quibble " about this race and that race and the other race being 
inferior as the creed of his party, and declares that the negro 
can never be elevated to the position of the white man. You 
find that his political meetings are called by different names in 
different counties in the State. Here they are called Republican 
meetings ; but in old Tazewell, where Lincoln made a speech 
last Tuesday, he did not address a Refiiblican meeting, but 
" a grand rally of the Lincoln men''' There are ver}^ few 
Republicans there, because Tazewell County is filled with 
old Virginians and Kentuckians, all of whom are Whigs or 
Democrats ; and if Mr. Lincoln had called an Abolition or 
Republican meeting there, he would not get many votes. Go 
down into Egypt, and you find that he and his party are operat- 
ing under an alias there, which his friend Trumbull has given 
them, in order that they may cheat the people. When I was 
down in Monroe County a few weeks ago, addressing the people, 
I saw handbills posted announcing that Mr. Trumbull was going 
to speak in behalf of Lincoln ; and what do you think the name 
of his party was there? Why, the ^'' Free Democracy y Mr. 
Trumbull and Mr. Jehu Baker were announced to address the 
Free Democracy of Monroe County, and the bill was signed, 
"Many Free Democrats." The reason that Lincoln and his 
party adopted the name of "Free Democracy" down there was 
because Monroe County has alwa3's been an old-fashioned 
Democratic county, and hence it was necessary to make the 
people believe that they were Democrats, sympathized with them, 
and were fighting for Lincoln as Democrats. Come up to 
Springfield, where Lincoln now lives, and always has lived, and 
you find that the Convention of his party which assembled to 
nominate candidates for Legislature, who are expected to vote 
for him if elected, dare not adopt the name of Republican, but 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 265 

assembled under the title of "all opposed to the Democracy." 
Thus you find that Mr. Lincoln's creed cannot travel through 
even one-half of the counties of this State, but that it changes 
its hues and becomes lighter and lighter as it travels from the 
extreme north, until it is nearly white when it reaches the extreme 
south end of the State. 

I ask you, my friends, why cannot Republicans avow their 
principles alike everywhere? I would despise myself if I thought 
that I was procuring your votes by concealing my opinions, and 
by avowing one set of principles in one part of the State, and a 
different set in another part. If I do not truly and honorably 
represent your feelings and principles, then I ought not to be 
your senator ; and I will never conceal my opinions, or modify or 
change them a hair's breadth, in order to get votes. I tell you 
that this Chicago doctrine of Lincoln's — declaring that the negro 
and the white man are made equal by the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence and by Divine Providence — is a monstrous heresy. 
The signers of the Declaration of Independence never dreamed 
of the negro when they were writing that document. They 
referred to white men, to men of European birth, and European 
descent, when they declared the equality of all men. I see a 
gentleman there in the crowd shaking his head. Let me remind 
him that when Thomas Jefferson wrote that document, he was 
the owner, and so continued until his death, of a large number 
of slaves. Did he intend to say in that Declaration that his 
negro slaves, which he held and treated as property, were 
created his equals by divine law, and that he was violating the 
law of God every day of his life by holding them as slaves? It 
must be borne in mind that when that Declaration was put forth, 
every one of the thirteen Colonies were slaveholding Colonies, 
and every man who signed that instrument represented a slave- 
holding constituency. Recollect, also, that no one of them 
emancipated his slaves, much less put them on an equality with 
himself, after he signed the Declaration. On the contrary, they 
all continued to hold their negroes as slaves during the Revolu- 
tionary War. Now, do you believe — are you willing to have it 
said — that every man who signed the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence declared the negro his equal, and then was hypocrite 
enough to continue to hold him as a slave, in violation of what 
he believed to be the divine law? And yet when 3'ou say that 
the Declaration of Independence includes the negro, you charge 
the signers of it with hypocrisy. 

I say to you, frankly, that in my opinion this government was 
made by our fathers on the white basis. It was made by white 
men for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and 
was intended to be administered by white men in all time to 
come. But while I hold that under our Constitution and political 

35 



^66 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

system the negro is not a citizen, cannot be a citizen, and ought 
not to be a citizen, it does not follow by any means that he 
should be a slave. On the contrary, it does follow that the 
negro, as an inferior race, ought to possess every right, every 
privilege, every immunity, which he can safely exercise, con- 
sistent with the safety of the society in which he lives. Humanity 
requires, and Christianity commands, that you shall extend to 
every inferior being, and every dependent being, all the privileges, 
immunities, and advantages which can be granted to them, con- 
sistent with the safety of society. If you ask me the nature and 
extent of these privileges, I answer that that is a question which 
the people of each State must decide for themselves. Illinois 
has decided that question for herself. We have said that 
in this State the negro shall not be a slave, nor shall he be 
a citizen. Kentucky holds a different doctrine. New York 
holds one different from either, and Maine one different from all. 
Virginia, in her policy on this question, differs in many respects 
from the others, and so on, until there are hardl}'' two States whose 
policy is exactly alike in regard to the relation of the white man 
and the negro. Nor can you reconcile them and make them 
alike. Each State must do as it pleases. Illinois had as much 
right to adopt the policy which we have on that subject as Ken- 
tucky had to adopt a different policy. The great principle of 
this government is, that each State has the right to do as it 
pleases on all these questions, and no other State or power on 
earth has the right to interfere with us, or complain of us merely 
because our system differs from theirs. In the Compromise 
Measures of 1850, Mr. Clay declared that this great principle 
ought to exist in the Territories as well as in the States, and I 
reasserted his doctrine in the Kansas and Nebraska bill of 1854. 
But Mr. Lincoln cannot be made to understand, and those 
who are determined to vote for him, no matter whether he is a 
pro-slavery man in the South and a negro equality advocate in 
the North, cannot be made to understand how it is that in a Ter- 
ritory the people can do as they please on the slavery question 
under the Dred Scott decision. Let us see whether I cannot 
explain it to the satisfaction of all impartial men. Chief Justice 
Taney has said, in his opinion in the Dred Scott case, that a negro 
slave, being property, stands on an equal footing with other 
property, and that the owner may carry them into United States 
territor}' the same as he does other property. Suppose any two 
of you, neighbors, should conclude to go to Kansas, one carrying 
$100,000 worth of negro slaves, and the other $100,000 worth of 
mixed merchandise, including quantities of liquors. You both 
agree that under that decision you may carry your property to 
Kansas ; but when you get it there, the merchant who is pos- 
sessed of the liquors is met by the Maine liquor law, which pro- 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 267 

hibits the sale or use of his property, and the owner of the slaves 
is met by equally unfriendly legislation, which makes his prop- 
erty worthless after he gets it there. What is the right to carry 
your property into the Territory worth to either, when unfriendly 
legislation in the Territory renders it worthless after you get it 
there? The slaveholder when he gets his slaves there finds that 
there is no local law to protect him in holding them, no slave 
code, no police regulation maintaining and supporting him in his 
right, and he discovers at once that the absence of such friendly 
legislation excludes his property from the Territory just as irre- 
sistibly as if there was a positive Constitutional prohibition ex- 
cluding it. Thus you find it is with any kind of property in a 
Territory : it depends for its protection on the local and muni- 
cipal law. If the people of a Territory want slavery, they make 
friendly legislation to introduce it ; but if they do not want it, 
they withhold all protection from it, and then it cannot exist 
there. Such was the view taken on the subject by different 
Southern men when the Nebraska bill passed. See the speech 
of Mr. Orr, of South Carolina, the present Speaker of the House 
of Representatives of Congress, made at that time ; and there 
you will find this whole doctrine argued out at full length. Read 
the speeches of other Southern Congressmen, Senators and Rep- 
resentatives, made in 1854, and you will find that the}^ took the 
same view of the subject as Mr. Orr, — that slavery could never 
be forced on a people who did not want it. I hold that in this 
country there is no power on the face of the globe that can force 
any institution on an unwilling people. The great fundamental 
principle of our government is that the people of each State and 
each Territory shall be left perfectly free to decide for themselves 
what shall be the nature and character of their institutions. 
When this government was made, it was based on that principle. 
At the time of its formation there were twelve slaveholding States 
and one free State in this Union. Suppose this doctrine of Mr. 
Lincoln and the Republicans, of uniformity of laws of all the 
States on the subject of slavery, had prevailed ; suppose Mr. 
Lincoln himself had been a member of the Convention which 
framed the Constitution, and that he had risen in that august 
body, and, addressing the father of his country, had said as 
he did at Springfield : "A house divided against itself cannot 
stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently, 
half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be 
dissolved, I do not expect the house to fall, but I do ex- 
pect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing 
or all the other." What do you think would have been the 
result? Suppose he had made that Convention believe that doc- 
trine, and they had acted upon it, what do you think would have 
been the result? Do you believe that the one Free State would 



268 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

have outvoted the twelve slaveholding States, and thus abolish 
slavery? On the contrary, would not the twelve slaveholding 
States have outvoted the one Free State, and under his doctrine 
have fastened slavery by an irrevocable constitutional provision 
upon every inch of the American Republic? Thus you see that 
the doctrine he now advocates, if proclaimed at the beginning of 
the government, would have established slavery everywhere 
throughout the American continent ; and are you willing, now 
that we have the majority section, to exercise a power which we 
never would have submitted to when we were in the minority? 
If the Southern States had attempted to control our institutions, 
and make the States all slave, when they had the power, I ask 
would you have submitted to it? If you would not, are j'^ou wil- 
ling, now that we have become the strongest under that great 
principle of self-government that allows each State to do as it 
pleases, to attempt to control the Southern institutions? Then, 
my friends, I say to you that there is but one path of peace in 
this Republic, and that is to administer this government as our 
fathers made it, divided into Free and Slave States, allowing 
each State to decide for itself whether it wants slavery or not. 
If Illinois will settle the slavery question for herself, and mind 
her own business and let her neighbors alone, we will be at 
peace with Kentucky and every other Southern State. If every 
other State in the Union will do the same, there will be peace 
between the North and the South, and in the whole Union. 



MR. LINCOLN'S REPLY. 

My Fellow-Citizens : A very large portion of the speech 
which Judge Douglas has addressed to j'-ou has previously been 
delivered and put in print. I do not mean that for a hit upon the 
Judge at all. If I had not been interrupted, I was going to say 
that such an answer as I was able to make to a very large por- 
tion of it, had already been more than once made and published. 
There has been an opportunity afforded to the public to see our 
respective views upon the topics discussed in a large portion ot 
the speech which he has just delivered. I make these remarks 
for the purpose of excusing myself for not passing over the entire 
ground that the Judge has traversed. I however desire to take 
up some of the points that he has attended to, and ask your at- 
tention to them, and I shall follow him backwards upon some 
notes which I have taken, reversing the order, by beginning 
where he concluded. 

The Judge has alluded to the Declaration of Independence, 
and insisted that negroes are not included in that Declaration ; 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 269 

and that it is a slander upon the framers of that instrument to 
suppose that negroes were meant therein ; and he asks you : Is 
it possible to believe that Mr. Jefferson, who penned the immortal 
paper, could have supposed himself applying the language of 
that instrument to the negro race, and yet held a portion of that 
race in slavery ? Would he not at once have freed them ? I only 
have to remark upon this part of the Judge's speech (and that, 
too, very briefly, for I shall not detain myself, or you, upon that 
point for any great length of time), that I believe the entire 
records of the world, from the date of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence up to within three years ago, may be searched in vain 
for one single affirmation, from one single man, that the negro 
was not included in the Declaration of Independence ; I think I 
may defy Judge Douglas to show that he ever said so, that Wash- 
ington ever said so, that any President ever said so, that any 
member of Congress ever said so, or that any living man upon 
the whole earth ever said so, until the necessities of the present 
policy of the Democratic party, in regard to slavery, had to in- 
vent that affirmation. And I will remind Judge Douglas and this 
audience that while Mr. Jefferson was the owner of slaves, as un- 
doubtedly he was, in speaking upon this very subject he used the 
strong language that *'he trembled for his country when he re- 
membered that God was just ;" and I will offer the highest pre- 
mium in my power to Judge Douglas if he will show that he, in 
all his life, ever uttered a sentiment at all akin to that of Jefferson. 

The next thing to which I will ask your attention is the 
Judge's comments upon the facts, as he assumes it to be, that we 
cannot call our public meetings as Republican meetings ; and he 
instances Tazewell county as one of the places where the friends 
of Lincoln have called a public meeting and have not dared to 
name it a Republican meeting. He instances Monroe County 
as another, where Judge Trumbull and Jehu Baker addressed 
the persons whom the Judge assumes to be the friends of Lin- 
coln, calling them the "Free Democracy." I have the honor to 
inform Judge Douglas that he spoke in that very county of Taze- 
well last Saturday, and I was there on Tuesday last ; and when 
he spoke there, he spoke under a call not venturing to use the 
word "Democrat." [Turning to Judge Douglas.] What think 
you of this? 

So, again, there is another thing to which I would ask 
the Judge's attention upon this subject. In the contest of 1856 
his party delighted to call themselves together as the "National 
Democracy;" but now, if there should be a notice put up any- 
where for a meeting of the "National Democracy," Judge Doug- 
las and his friends would not come. They would not suppose 
themselves invited. They would understand that it was a call 
for those hateful postmasters whom he talks about. 



270 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Now a few words in regard to these extracts from speeches 
of mine which Judge Douglas has read to you, and which he 
supposes are in very great contrast to each other. Those speeches 
have been before the public for a considerable time, and if 
they have any inconsistency in them, it there is any conflict in 
them, the public have been able to detect it. When the Judge 
says, in speaking on this subject, that I make speeches of one 
sort for the people of the northern end of the State, and of a dif- 
ferent sort for the southern people, he assumes that I do not 
understand that my speeches will be put in print and read north 
and south. I knew all the while that the speech that I made at Chi- 
cago, and the one I made at Jonesboro and the one at Charleston, 
would all be put in print, and all the reading and intelligent men 
in the community would see them and know all about my opin- 
ions. And I have not supposed, and do not now suppose, that 
there is any conflict whatever between them. But the Judge will 
have it that if we do not confess that there is a sort of inequality 
between the white and black races which justifies us in making 
them slaves, we must then insist that there is a degree of equality 
that requires us to make them our wives. Now, I have all the 
while taken a broad distinction in regard to that matter ; and that 
is all there is in these different speeches which he arrays here ; 
and the entire reading of either of the speeches will show that 
that distinction was made. Perhaps by taking two parts of 
the same speech he could have got up as much of a conflict as 
the one he has found. I have all the while maintained that in so 
far as it should be insisted that there was an equality between 
the white and black races that should produce a perfect social 
and political equality, it was an impossibility. This you have 
seen in my printed speeches, and with it I have said that in their 
right to " life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," as proclaimed 
in that old Declaration, the inferior races are our equals. And 
these declarations I have constantly made in reference to the 
abstract moral question, to contemplate and consider when we 
are legislating about any new country which is not already cursed 
with the actual presence of the evil, — slavery. I have never 
manifested any impatience wath the necessities that spring from 
the actual presence of black people amongst us, and the actual 
existence of slavery amongst us where it does already exist ; but 
I have insisted that, in legislating for new countries where it 
does not exist, there is no just rule other than that of moral and 
abstract right ! With reference to those new^ countries, those max- 
ims as to the right of a people to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness" w^ere the fust rules to be constantly referred to. There 
is no misunderstanding this, except by men interested to mis- 
understand it. I take it that I have to address an intelligent and 
reading community, who will peruse what I say, weigh it, and 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 271 

then judge whether I advance improper or unsound views, or 
whether I advance hypocritical, and deceptive, and contrary- 
views in different portions of the country. I believe myself to be 
guilty of no such thing as the latter, though, of course, I cannot 
claim that I am entirely free from all error in the opinions I 
advance. 

The Judge has also detained us awhile in regard to the dis- 
tinction between his party and our party. His he assumes to be 
a national party, — ours a sectional one. He does this in asking 
the question whether this country has any interest in the main- 
tenance of the Republican party? He assumes that our party is 
altogether sectional, that the party to which he adheres is national ; 
and the argument is, that no party can be a rightful party — can 
be based upon rightful principles — unless it can announce its 
principles everywhere. I presume that Judge Douglas could not 
go into Russia and announce the doctrine of our national Demo- 
cracy ; he could not denounce the doctrine of kings and emperors 
and monarchies in Russia ; and it may be true of this country 
that in some places we may not be able to proclaim a doctrine 
as clearly true as the truth of Democracy, because there is a sec- 
tion so directly opposed to it that they will not tolerate us in doing 
so. Is it the true test of the soundness of a doctrine that in some 
places people won't let you proclaim it? Is that the way to test 
the timth of any doctrine? Why, I understood that at one time 
the people of Chicago would not let Judge Douglas preach a certain 
favorite doctrine of his. I commend to his consideration the 
question, whether he takes that as a test of the unsoundness of what 
he wanted to preach. 

There is another thing to which I wish to ask attention for a 
little while on this occasion. What has always been the evidence 
brought forward to prove that the Republican party is a sectional 
party? The main one was that in the Southern portion of the 
Union the people did not let the Republicans proclaim their doc- 
trines amongst them. That has been the main evidence brought 
forward, — that they had no supporters, or substantially none, in 
the Slave States. The South have not taken hold of our prin- 
ciples as we announce them ; nor does Judge Douglas now grap- 
ple with those principles. We have a Republican State Platform, 
laid down in Springfield in June last, stating our position all 
the way through the questions before the country. We are now 
far advanced in this canvass. Judge Douglas and I have made 
perhaps forty speeches apiece, and we have now for the fifth 
time met face to face in debate, and up to this day I have not 
found either Judge Douglas or any friend of his taking hold of 
the Republican platform, or laying his finger upon anything in it 
that is wrong. I ask you all to recollect that. Judge Douglas 
turns away from the platform of principles to the fact that he can 



272 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

find people somewhere who will not allow us to announce those 
principles. If he had great confidence that our principles were 
wrong, he would take hold of them and demonstrate them to be 
wrong. But he does not do so. The only evidence he has of 
their being wrong is in the fact that there are people who won't 
allow us to preach them. I ask again, is that the way to test the 
soundness of a doctrine? 

I ask his attention also to the fact that by the rule of nation- 
ality he is himself fast becoming sectional. I ask his attention 
to the fact that his speeches would not go as current now south 
of the Ohio River as they have formerly gone there. I ask his 
attention to the fact that he felicitates himself to-day that all the 
Democrats of the Free States are agreeing with him, while he omits 
to tell us that the Democrats of any Slave State agree with him. 
If he has not thought of this, I commend to his consideration the 
evidence in his own declaration, on this day, of his becoming 
sectional too. I see it rapidly approaching. Whatever may be 
the result of this ephemeral contest between Judge Douglas and 
m3^self, I see the day rapidly approaching when his pill of sec- 
tionalism, which he has been thrusting down the throats of 
Republicans for years past, will be crowded down his own throat. 

Now, in regard to what Judge Douglas said (in the begin- 
ning of his speech) about the Compromise of 1850 containing 
the principle of the Nebraska bill, although I have often pre- 
sented my views upon that subject, yet as I have not done so in 
this canvass, I will, if you please, detain you a little with them. 
I have always maintained, so far as I was able, that there was 
nothing of the principle of the Nebraska bill in the Compromise 
of 1850 at all, — nothing whatever. Where can you find the 
principle of the Nebraska bill in that Compromise? If any- 
where, in the two pieces of the Compromise organizing the 
Territories of New Mexico and Utah. It was expressly pro- 
vided in these two Acts that when they came to be admitted 
into the Union, they should be admitted with or without slavery, 
as they should choose, by their own constitutions. Nothing was 
said in either of tliose Acts as to what was to be done in relation 
to slavery during the Territorial existence of those Territories, 
while Henry Clay constantly made the declaration (Judge 
Douglas recognizing him as a leader) that, in his opinion, 
the old Mexican laws would control that question during 
the Territorial existence, and that these old Mexican laws 
excluded slavery. How can that be used as a principle for 
declaring that during the Territorial existence as well as 
at the time of framing the constitution, the people, if you 
please, might have slaves if they wanted them? I am not dis- 
cussing the question \vhether it is right or w^rong : but how are 
the New Mexican and Utah laws patterns for the Nebraska bill ? 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 273 

I maintain that the organization of Utah and New Mexico did 
not establish a general principle at all. It had no feature of 
establishing a general principle. The Acts to which I have 
referred were a part of a general system of Compromises. They 
did not lay down what was proposed as a regular policy for the 
Territories, only an agreement in this particular case to do in 
that way, because other things were done that were to be a com- 
pensation for it. They were allowed to come in in that shape, 
because in another way it was paid for, — considering that as a 
part of that system of measures called the Compromise of 1850, 
which finally included half-a-dozen Acts. It included the 
admission of California as a free State, which was kept out of the 
Union for half a year because it had formed a free constitution. 
It included the settlement of the boundary of Texas, which had 
been undefined before, which was in itself a slavery question ; 
for if 5'ou pushed the line farther west, you made Texas larger, 
and made more slave territory ; while, if you drew the line 
toward the east, you narrowed the boundary and diminished the 
domain of slavery, and by so much increased free territory. It 
included the abolition of the slave trade in the District of 
Columbia. It included the passage of a new Fugitive Slave law. 
All these things were put together, and though passed in separ- 
ate Acts, were nevertheless, in legislation (as the speeches at 
the time will show), made to depend upon each other. Each 
got votes, with the understanding that the other measures were to 
pass, and by this system of Compromise, in that series of meas- 
ures, those two bills — the New Mexico and Utah bills — were 
passed : and I say for that reason they could not be taken as 
models, framed upon their own intrinsic principle, for all future 
Territories. And I have the evidence of this in the fact that 
Judge Douglas, a year afterward, or more than a year afterward, 
perhaps, when he first introduced bills for the purpose of fram- 
ing new Territories, did not attempt to follow these bills of New 
Mexico and Utah ; and even when he introduced this Nebraska 
bill, I think you will discover that he did not exactly follow 
them. But I do not wish to dwell at great length upon this 
branch of the discussion. My own opinion is, that a thorough 
investigation will show most plainly that the New Mexico and 
Utah bills were part of a system of compromise, and not designed 
as patterns for future Territorial legislation ; and that this 
Nebraska bill did not follow them as a pattern at all. 

The Judge tells, in proceeding, that he is opposed to making 
any odious distinctions between Free and Slave States. I am 
altogether unaware that the Republicans are in favor of making 
any odious distinctions between the Free and Slave States. But 
there is still a difference, I think, between Judge Douglas and 
the Republicans in this. I suppose that the real difference 

36 



274 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

between Judge Douglas and his friends, and the RepubHcans on 
the contrary, is, that the Judge is not in favor of making any 
difference between slavery and liberty ; that he is in favor of 
eradicating, of pressing out of view, the questions of preference 
in this country for free or slave institutions ; and consequently 
every sentiment he utters discards the idea that there is any 
wrong in slavery. Everything that emanates from him or his 
coadjutors in their course of policy carefully excludes the thought 
that there is anything wrong in slavery. All their arguments, if 
j'^ou will consider them, will be seen to exclude the thought 
that there is anything whatever wrong in slavery. If you 
will take the Judge's speeches, and select the short and 
pointed sentences expressed by him, — as his declaration that he 
" don't care whether slavery is voted up or down," you will see 
at once that this is perfectly logical, if you do not admit that 
slavery is wrong. If you do admit that it is wrong. Judge 
Douglas cannot logically say he don't care whether a wrong is 
voted up or voted down. Judge Douglas declares that if any 
community wants slavery they have a right to have it. He can 
say that logically, if he says that there is no wrong in slavery ; 
but if you admit that there is a wrong in it, he cannot logically 
say that anybody has a right to do wrong. He insists that, upon 
the score of equality, the owners of slaves and owners of property 
— of horses and every other sort of property — should be alike, 
and hold them alike in a new Territory. That is perfectly 
logical if the two species of property are alike and are equally 
founded in right. But if you admit that one of them is wrong, 
you cannot institute any equality between right and wrong. 
And from this difference of sentiment, — the belief on the part of 
one that the institution is wrong, and a policy springing from 
that belief which looks to the arrest of the enlargement of that 
wrong ; and this other sentiment, that it is no wrong, and a 
policy sprung from that sentiment, which will tolerate no idea of 
preventing the wrong from growing larger, and looks to there 
never being an end to it through all the existence of things, — 
arises the real difference between Judge Douglas and his friends 
on the one hand, and the Republicans on the other. Now, I 
confess myself as belonging to that class in the country who 
contemplate slavery as a moral, social, and political evil, having 
due regard for its actual existence amongst us and the difficulties 
of getting rid of it in any satisfactory way, and to all the consti- 
tutional obligations which have been thrown about it ; but, never- 
theless, desire a policy that looks to the prevention of it as a 
wrong, and looks hopefully to the time when as a wrong it may 
come to an end. 

Judge Douglas has again, for, I believe, the fifth time, if not 
the seventh, in my presence, reiterated his charge of a conspiracy 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 275 

or combination between the National Democrats and Repub- 
licans. What evidence Judge Douglas has upon this subject I 
know not, inasmuch as he never favors us with an}-. I have 
said upon a former occasion, and I do not choose to suppress it 
now, that I have no objection to the division in the Judge's party. 
He got it up himself. It was all his and their work. He had, 
I think, a great deal more to do with the steps that led to the 
Lecompton Constitution than Mr. Buchanan had ; though at last, 
when they reached it, they quarreled over it, and their friends 
divided upon it. I am very free to confess to Judge Douglas 
that I have no objection to the division ; but I defy the Judge to 
show any evidence that I have in any way promoted that divi- 
sion, unless he insists on being a witness himself in merely 
saying so. I can give all fair friends of Judge Douglas here to 
understand exactly the view that Republicans take in regard to 
that division. Don't you remember how two years ago the op- 
ponents of the Democratic party were divided between Fremont 
and Fillmore? I guess you do. Any democrat who remembers 
that division will remember also that he was at the time very 
glad of it, and then he will be able to see all there is between the 
National Democrats and the Republicans. What we now think 
of the two divisions of Democrats, you then thought of the 
Fremont and Fillmore divisions. That is all there is of it. 

But if the Judge continues to put forward the declaration 
that there is an unholy and unnatural alliance between the 
Republican and the National Democrats, I now want to enter 
my protest against receiving him as an entirely competent 
witness upon that subject. I want to call to the Judge's atten- 
tion an attack he made upon me in the first one of these debates, 
at Ottawa, on the 21st of August. In order to fix extreme 
Abolitionism upon me, Judge Douglas read a set of resolutions 
which he declared had been passed by a Republican State Con- 
vention, in October, 1854, at Springfield, Illinois, and he declared 
I had taken part in that Convention. It turned out that although 
a few men calling themselves an anti-Nebraska State Convention 
had sat at Springfield about that time, yet neither did I take any 
part in it, nor did it pass the resolutions or any such resolutions 
as Judge Douglas read. So apparent had it become that the 
resolutions which he read had not been passed at Springfield at 
all, nor by a State Convention in which I had taken part, that 
seven days afterward, at Freeport, Judge Douglas declared that 
he had been misled by Charles H. Lanphier, editor of the 
*' State Register," and Thomas L. Harris, member of Congress 
in that District, and he promised in that speech that when he 
went to Springfield he would investigate the matter. Since then 
Judge Douglas has been to Springfield, and I presume has made 
the investigation ; but a month has passed since he has been 



276 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

there, and, so far as I know, he has made no report of the result 
of his investigation. I have waited as I think sufficient time for 
the report of that investigation, and I have some curiosity to see 
and hear it. A fraud, an absolute forgery was committed, and 
the perpetration of it was traced to the three, — Lanphier, Harris, 
and Douglas. Whether it can be narrowed in any way so as to 
exonerate any one of them, is what Judge Douglas's report would 
probably show. 

It is true that the set of resolutions read by Judge Douglas 
were published in the Illinois "State Register" on the 16th of 
October, 1854, as being the resolutions of an anti-Nebraska 
Convention which had sat in that same month of October, at 
Springfield. But it is also true that the publication in the 
" Register" was a forgery then, and the question is still behind, 
which of the three, if not all of them, committed that forgery? 
The idea that it was done by mistake, is absurd. The article in 
the Illinois "State Register" contains part of the real proceedings 
of that Springfield Convention, showing that the writer of the 
article had the real proceedings before him, and purposely threw 
out the genuine resolutions passed by the Convention, and 
fraudulently substituted the others. Lanphier then, as now, was 
the editor of the " Register," so that there seems to be but little 
room for his escape. But then it is to be borne in mind that 
Lanphier had less interest in the object of that forgery than 
either of the other two. The main object of that forgery at that 
time was to beat Yates and elect Harris to Congress, and that 
object was known to be exceedingly dear to Judge Douglas at 
that time. Harris and Douglas were both in Springfield when 
the Convention was in session, and although they both left before 
the fraud appeared in the " Register," subsequent events show 
that they have both had their eyes fixed upon that Convention. 

The fraud having been apparently successful upon the 
occasion, both Harris and Douglas have more than once since 
then been attempting to put it to new uses. As the fisherman's 
wife, whose drowned husband was brought home with his body 
full of eels, said when she was asked, " What was to be done 
with him?" '■^ Take the eels out and set him again,''' so Harris 
and Douglas have shown a disposition to take the eels out 
of that stale fraud by which they gained Harris's election, 
and set the fraud again more than once. On the 9th of July, 
1856, Douglas attempted a repetition of it upon Trumbull on the 
floor of the Senate of the United States, as will appear from the 
appendix of the "Congressional Globe" of that date. 

On the 9th of August, Harris attempted it again upon 
Norton in the House of Representatives, as will appear by the 
same documents, — the appendix to the "Congressional Globe" 
of that date. On the 21st of August last, all three — Lanphier, 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 277 

Douglas, and Harris — reattempted it upon me at Ottawa. It 
has been clung to and played out again and again as an exceed- 
ingly high trump by this blessed trio. And now that it has been 
discovered publicly to be a fraud, we find that Judge Douglas 
manifests no surprise at it at all. He makes no complaint of 
Lanphier, who must have known it to be a fraud from the 
beginning. He, Lanphier, and Harris are just as cozey now, and 
just as active in the concoction of new schemes as they were 
before the general discovery of this fraud. Now, all this is very 
natural if they are all alike guilty in that fraud, and it is very 
unnatural if any one of them is innocent. Lanphier perhaps 
insists that the rule of honor among thieves does not quite 
require him to take all upon himself, and consequently my friend 
Judge Douglas finds it difficult to make a satisfactory report 
upon his investigation. But meanwhile the three are agreed 
that each is "a most honorable man''' 

Judge Douglas requires an indorsement of his truth and 
honor by a re-election to the United States Senate, and he makes 
and reports against me and against Judge Trumbull, day after 
day, charges which we know to be utterly untrue, without for a 
moment seeming to think that this one unexplained fraud, which 
he promised to investigate, will be the least drawback to his 
claim to belief. Harris ditto. He asks a re-election to the lower 
House of Congress without seeming to remember at all that he 
is involved in this dishonorable fraud ! The Illinois " State 
Register," edited by Lanphier, then, as now, the central organ 
of both Harris and Douglas, continues to din the public ear with 
this assertion, without seeming to suspect that these assertions 
are at all lacking in title to belief. 

After all, the question still recurs upon us. How did that 
fraud originally get into the " State Register " ? Lanphier then, 
as now, was the editor of that paper. Lanphier knows. Lan- 
phier cannot be ignorant of how and by whom it was originally 
concocted. Can he be induced to tell, or, if he has told, can 
Judge Douglas be induced to tell how it originally was con- 
cocted? It may be true that Lanphier insists that the two 
men for whose benefit it was originally devised shall at least 
bear their share of it ! How that is, I do not know, and while 
it remains unexplained, I hope to be pardoned if I insist that the 
mere fact of Judge Douglas making charges against Trumbull 
and myself is not quite sufficient evidence to establish them I 

While we were at Freeport, in one of these joint discus- 
sions, I answered certain interrogatories which Judge Douglas 
had propounded to me, and then in turn propounded some to 
him, which he in a sort of way answered. The third one of 
these interrogatories I have with me, and wish now to make 
some comments upon it. It was in these words : " If the 



278 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Supreme Court of the United States shall decide that the States 
cannot exclude slavery from their limits, are you in favor of 
acquiescing in, adhering to, and following such decision as a 
rule of political action?" 

To this interrogatory Judge Douglas made no answer 
in any just sense of the word. He contented himself with 
sneering at the thought that it was possible for the Supreme 
Court ever to make such a decision. He sneered at me for 
propounding the interrogatory. I had not propounded it without 
some reflection, and I wish now to address to this audience some 
remarks upon it. 

In the second clause of the sixth article, I believe it is, of 
the Constitution of the United States, we find the following 
language: "This Constitution and the laws of the United 
States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties 
made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United 
States, shall be the supreme law of the land ; and the judges in 
every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution 
or laws of any State to the contrary, notwithstanding." 

The essence of the Dred Scott case is compressed into the 
sentence which I will now read: "Now, as we have already 
said in an earlier part of this opinion, upon a different point, the 
right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly aflirmed 
in the Constitution." I repeat it, '''■The right of property in a 
slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution!'''' 
What is it to be '■'■ affirmed'''' in the Constitution? Made firm in 
the Constitution, — so made that it cannot be separated from the 
Constitution without breaking the Constitution ; durable as the 
Constitution, and part of the Constitution. Now, remembering 
the provision of the Constitution which I have read ; affirming 
that that instrument is the supreme law of the land ; that the 
Judges of every State shall be bound by it, any law or constitu- 
tion of any State to the contrary notwithstanding ; that the right 
of property in a slave is affirmed in that Constitution, is made, 
formed into, and cannot be separated from it without breaking 
it ; durable as the instrument ; part of the instrument ; — what 
follows as a short and even syllogistic argument from it? I 
think it follows, and I submit to the consideration of men 
capable of arguing, whether as I state it, in syllogistic form, the 
argument has any fault in it? 

Nothing in the Constitution or laws of any State can destroy 
a right distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution of 
the United States. 

The right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly 
affirmed in the Constitution of the United States. 

Therefore, nothing in the Constitution or laws of any State 
can destroy the right of property in a slave. 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 279 

I believe that no fault can be pointed out in that argument ; 
assuming the truth of the premises, the conclusion, so far as I 
have capacity at all to understalid it, follows inevitably. There 
is a fault in it as I think, but the fault is not in the reasoning ; 
but the falsehood in fact is a fault of the premises. I believe 
that the right of property in a slave is not distinctly and 
expressly affirmed in the Constitution, and Judge Douglas thinks 
it is. I believe that the Supreme Court and the advocates of 
that decision may search in vain for the place in the Constitution 
where the right of a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed. 
I say, therefore, that I think one of the premises is not true in 
fact. But it is true with Judge Douglas. It is true with the 
Supreme Court who pronounced it. They are estopped from 
denying it, and being estopped from denying it, the conclusion 
follows that, the Constitution of the United States being the 
supreme law, no constitution or law can interfere with it. It 
being affirmed in the decision that the right of property in a slave 
is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution, the 
conclusion inevitably follows that no State law or constitution can 
destroy that right. I then say to Judge Douglas and to all 
others that I think it will take a better answer than a sneer to 
show that those who have said that the right of property in a 
slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution, are 
not prepared to show that no constitution or law can destroy 
that right. I say I believe it will take a far better argument . 
than a mere sneer to show to the minds of intelligent men that 
whoever has so said, is not prepared, whenever public sentiment 
is so far advanced as to justify it, to say the other. This is 
but an opinion, and the opinion of one very humble man ; 
but it is my opinion that the Dred Scott decision, as it is, 
never would have been made in its present form if the party 
that made it had not been sustained previously by the elections. 
My own opinion is, that the new Dred Scott decision, deciding 
against the right of the people of the States to exclude slavery, 
will never be made, if that party is not sustained by the elections. 
I believe, further, that it is just as sure to be made as to-morrow/' 
is to come, if that party shall be sustained. I have said, upon a 
former occasion, and I repeat it now, that the course of argument 
that Judge Douglas makes use of upon this subject (I charge 
not his motives in this), is preparing the public mind for that 
new Dred Scott decision. I have asked him again to point out 
to me the reasons for his first adherence to the Dred Scott 
decision as it is. I have turned his attention to the fact that 
General Jackson differed with him in regard to the political 
obligation of a Supreme Court decision. I have asked his 
attention to the fact that Jefferson differed with him in regard to 
the political obligation of a Supreme Court decision. Jefferson 



280 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

said that "Judges are as honest as other men, and not more so." 
And he said, substantially, that " whenever a free people should 
give up in absolute submission to any department of government, 
retaining for themselves no appeal from it, their liberties were 
gone." I have asked his attention to the fact that the Cincinnati 
platform upon which he says he stands, disregards a time-honored 
decision of the Supreme Court, in denying the power of Congress 
to establish a National Bank. I have asked his attention to the 
fact that he himself was one of the most active instruments at 
one time in breaking down the Supreme Court of the State of 
Illinois, because it had made a decision distasteful to him, — a 
struggle ending in the remarkable circumstance of his sitting 
down as one of the new Judges who were to overslaugh that 
decision ; getting his title of Judge in that very way. 

So far in this controversy I can get no answer at all from 
Judge Douglas upon these subjects. Not one can I get from'' 
him, except that he swells himself up and says, " All of us who 
stand by the decision of the Supreme Court are the friends of 
the Constitution ; all you fellows that dare question it in any 
way, are the enemies of the Constitution." Now, in this very 
devoted adherence to this decision, in opposition to all the great 
political leaders whom he has recognized as leaders, in opposition 
to his former self and history, there is something very marked. 
And the manner in which he adheres to it, — not as being right 
upon the merits, as he conceives (because he did not discuss 
that at all) , but as being absolutely obligatory upon every one, 
simply because of the source from whence it comes, — as that 
which no man can gainsay, whatever it may be ; this is another 
marked feature of his adherence to that decision. It marks it in 
this respect that it commits him to the next decision, whenever it 
comes, as being as obligatory as this one, since he does not 
investigate it, and won't inquire whether this opinion is right or 
wrong. So he takes the next one without inquiring whether it 
is right or wrong. He teaches men this doctrine, and in so 
doing prepares the public mind to take the next decision when it 
comes, without any inquiry. In this I think I argue fairly (with- 
out questioning motives at all) that Judge Douglas is most 
ingeniously and powerfully preparing the public mind to take that 
decision when it comes ; and not only so, but he is doing it in 
various other ways. In these general maxims about liberty, in 
his assertions that he " don't care whether slavery is voted up or 
voted down ; " that "whoever wants slavery has a right to have 
it ;" that "upon principles of equality it should be allowed to go 
everywhere ; " that " there is no inconsistency between free and 
slave institutions." In this he is also preparing (whether pur- 
posely or not) the way for making the institution of slavery 
national ! I repeat again, for I wish no misunderstanding, that I 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 281 

do not charge that he means it so ; but I call upon your minds 
to inquire, if you were going to get the best instrument you 
could, and then set it to work in the most ingenious way, to pre- 
pare the public mind for this movement, operating in the Free 
States, where there is now an abhorrence of the institution of 
slavery, could you find an instrument so capable of doing it as 
Judge Douglas, or one employed in so apt a way to do it? 

I have said once before, and I will repeat it now, that Mr. 
Clay, when he was once answering an objection to the Coloniza- 
tion Society, that it had a tendency to the ultimate emancipation 
of the slaves, said that " those who would repress all tendencies 
to liberty and ultimate emancipation must do more than put down 
the benevolent efforts of the Colonization Society, — they must 
go back to the era of our liberty and independence, and muzzle 
the cannon that thunders its annual joyous return ; they must blot 
out the moral lights around us ; they must penetrate the human 
soul, and eradicate the light of reason and the love of liberty !" 
And I do think — I repeat, though I said it on a former occasion 
— that Judge Douglas and whoever, like him, teaches that the 
negro has no share, humble though it may be, in the Declaration 
of Independence, is going back to the era of our liberty and 
independence, and, so far as in him lies, muzzling the cannon 
that thunders its annual joyous return ; that he is blowing out 
the moral lights around us, when he contends that whoever 
wants slaves has a right to hold them ; that he is penetrating, so 
far as lies in his power, the human soul, and eradicating the 
light of reason and the love of liberty, when he is in every 
possible way preparing the public mind, by his vast influence, 
for making the institution of slavery perpetual and national. 

There is, my friends, only one other point to which I will 
call your attention for the remaining time that I have left me, 
and perhaps I shall not occupy the entire time that I have, as 
that one point may not take me clear through it. 

Among the interrogatories that Judge Douglas propounded 
to me at Freeport, there was one in about this language : "Are 
you opposed to the acquisition of any further territory to the 
United States, unless slavery shall first be prohibited therein ?" 
I answered, as I thought, in this way, that I am not generally 
opposed to the acquisition of additional territory, and that I 
would support a proposition for the acquisition of additional 
territory according as my supporting it was or was not calcu- 
lated to aggravate this slavery question amongst us. I then 
proposed to Judge Douglas another interrogatory, which was 
correlative to that: " Are vou in favor of acquiring additional 
territory, in disregard of how it may afTect us upon the slavery 
question ? " Judge Douglas answered, — that is, in his own way 
he answered it. I believe that, although he took a good many 

37 



282 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

words to answer it, it was a little more fully answered than any 
other. The substance of his answer was, that this country would 
continue to expand ; that it would need additional territory ; 
that it was as absurd to suppose that we could continue upon our 
present territory, enlarging in population as we are, as it would 
be to hoop a boy twelve years of age, and expect him to grow to 
man's size without bursting the hoops. I believe it was some- 
thing like that. Consequently, he was in favor of the acquisition 
of further territory as fast as we might need it, in disregard of 
how it might affect the slavery question. I do not say this as 
giving his exact language, but he said so substantially ; and he 
would leave the question of slavery where the territory was 
acquired, to be settled by the people of the acquired territory. 
["That's the doctrine."] May be it is ; let us consider that for 
a while. This will probably, in the run of things, become one 
of the concrete manifestations of this slavery question. If Judge 
Douglas's policy upon this question succeeds, and gets fairly 
settled down, until all opposition is ci*ushed out, the next thing 
will be a grab for the territory of poor Mexico, an invasion of 
the rich lands of South America, then the adjoining islands will 
follow, each one of which promises additional slave-fields. And 
this question is to be left to the people of those countries for 
settlement. When we get Mexico, I don't know whether the 
Judge will be in favor of the Mexican people that we get with 
it settling that question for themselves and all others ; because 
we know the Judge has a great horror for mongrels, and I 
understand that the people of Mexico are most decidedly a race 
of mongrels. I understand that there is not more than one 
person there out of eight who is pure white, and I suppose from 
the Judge's previous declaration that when we get Mexico or 
any considerable portion of it, that he will be in favor of these 
mongrels settling the question, which would bring him somewhat 
into collision with his horror of an inferior race. 

It is to be remembered, though, that this power of acquiring 
additional territory is a power confided to the President and the 
Senate of the United States. It is a power not under the control 
of the representatives of the people any further than they, the 
President and the Senate, can be considered the representatives 
of the people. Let me illustrate that by a case we have in our 
history. When we acquired the territory from Mexico in the 
Mexican war, the House of Representatives, composed of the 
immediate representatives of the people, all the time insisted that 
the territory thus to be acquired should be brought in upon con- 
dition that slavery should be forever prohibited therein, upon the 
terms and in the language that slavery had been prohibited from 
coming into this country. That was insisted upon constantly 
and never failed to call forth an assurance that any territory thus 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 283 

acquired should have that prohibition in it, so far as the House of 
Representatives was concerned. But at last the President and 
Senate acquired the territory without asking the House of Repre- 
sentatives anything about it, and took it without that prohibi- 
tion. They have the power of acquiring territory without the 
immediate representatives of the people being called upon to say 
anything about it, and thus furnishing a very apt and powerful 
means of bringing new territory into the Union, and, when it is 
once brought into the country, involving us anew in this slavery 
agitation. It is, therefore, as I think, a very important question 
for the consideration of the American people, whether the policy 
of bringing in additional territory, without considering at all how 
it will operate upon the safety of the Union in reference to this 
one great disturbing element in our national politics, shall be 
adopted as the policy of the country. You will bear in mind that 
it is to be acquired, according to the Judge's view, as fast as it is 
needed, and the indefinite part of this proposition is that we have 
only Judge Douglas and his class of men to decide how fast it is 
needed. We have no clear and certain way of determining or 
demonstrating how fast territory is needed by the necessities of 
the country. Whoever wants to go out filibustering, then, thinks 
that more territory is needed. Whoever wants wider slave-fields, 
feels sure that some additional territory is needed as slave-terri- 
tory. Then it is as easy to show the necessity of additional slave- 
territory as it is to assert anything that is incapable of absolute 
demonstration. Whatever motive a man or a set of men may 
have for making annexation of property or territory, it is very 
easy to assert, but much less easy to disprove, that it is necessary 
for the wants of the country. 

And now it only remains for me to say that I think it is a 
very grave question for the people of this Union to consider, 
whether, in view of the fact that this slavery question has been the 
only one that has ever endangered our Republican institutions, 
the only one that has ever threatened or menaced a dissolution of 
the Union, that has ever disturbed us in such a way as to make 
us fear for the perpetuity of our liberty, — in view of these facts, I 
think it is an exceedingly interesting and important question for 
this people to consider whether we shall engage in the policy of 
acquiring additional territory, discarding altogether from our 
consideration, while obtaining new territory, the question how it 
may affect us in regard to this, the only endangering element to 
our liberties and national greatness. The Judge's view has been 
expressed. I, in my answer to his question, have expressed 
mine. I think it will become an important and practical question. 
Our views are before the public. I am willing and anxious that 
they should consider them fully ; that they should turn it about 
and consider the importance of the question, and arrive at a just 



284 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

conclusion as to whether it is or is not wise in the people of this 
Union, in the acquisition of new territory, to consider whether it 
will add to the disturbance that is existing amongst us, — whether 
it will add to the one only danger that has ever threatened the 
perpetuity of the Union or our own liberties. I think it is 
extremely important that they shall decide, and rightly decide, 
that question before entering upon that policy. 

And now, my friends, having said the little I wish to say 
upon this head, whether I have occupied the whole of the rem- 
nant of my time or not, I believe I could not enter upon any new 
topic so as to treat it fully, without transcending my time, which 
I would not for a moment think of doing. I give way to Judge 
Douglas. 



MR. DOUGLAS'S REPLY. 

Gentlemen : The highest compliment you can pay me 
during the brief half-hour that I have to conclude is by observing 
a strict silence. I desire to be heard rather than to be applauded. 

The first criticism that Mr. Lincoln makes on my speech was 
that it was in substance what I have said everywhere else in the 
State where I have addressed the people. I wish I could say 
the same of his speech. Why, the reason I complain of him is 
because he makes one speech north, and another south. Because 
he has one set of sentiments for the Abolition counties, and 
another set for the counties opposed to Abolitionism. My point 
of complaint against him is that I cannot induce him to hold up 
the same standard, to carry the same flag, in all parts of the 
State. He does not pretend, and no other man will, that I have 
one set of principles for Galesburgh, and another for Charleston. 
He does not pretend that I hold to one doctrine in Chicago, and 
an opposite one in Jonesboro. I have proved that he has a 
different set of principles for each of these localities. All I asked 
of him was that he should deliver the speech that he has made 
here to-day in Coles County instead of in old Knox. It would 
have settled the question between us in that doubtful county. 
Here I understand him to reaffirm the doctrine of negro equality, 
and to assert that by the Declaration of Independence the negro 
is declared equal to the white man. He tells j^ou to-day that 
the negro was included in the Declaration of Independence 
when it asserted that all men were created equal. [" We believe 
it."] Very well. 

Mr. Lincoln asserts to-day, as he did at Chicago, that the 
negro was included in that clause of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence which says that all men were created equal and en- 
dowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights, among 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 285 

which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If the negro 
was made his equal and mine, if that equality was established by 
divine law, and was the negro's inalienable right, how came he 
to say at Charleston to the Kentuckians residing in that section 
of our State that the negro was physically inferior to the white 
man, belonged to an inferior race, and he was for keeping him 
in that inferior condition. There he gave the people to under- 
stand that there was no moral question involved, because, the 
inferiority being established, it was only a question of degree, 
and not a question of right ; here, to-day, instead of making it a 
question of degree, he makes it a moral question, says that it is a 
great crime to hold the negro in that inferior condition. ["He's 
right."] Is he right now, or was he right in Charleston? 
["Both."] He is right, then, sir, in your estimation, not because 
he is consistent, but because he can trim his principles any way, 
in any section, so as to secure votes. All I desire of him is that 
he will declare the same principles in the south that he does in 
the north. 

But did you notice how he answered my position that a man 
should hold the same doctrines throughout the length and breadth 
of this Republic? He said, "Would Judge Douglas go to Russia 
and proclaim the same principles he does here?" I would re- 
mind him that Russia is not under the American Constitution. 
If Russia was a part of the American Republic, under our 
Federal Constitution, and I was sworn to support the Constitu- 
tion, I would maintain the same doctrine in Russia that I do in 
Illinois. The slaveholding States are governed by the same 
Federal Constitution as ourselves, and hence a man's principles, 
in order to be in harmony with the Constitution, must be the 
same in the South as they are in the North, the same in the Free 
States as they are in the Slave States. Whenever a man advo- 
cates one set of principles in one section, and another set in 
another section, his opinions are in violation of the spirit of the 
Constitution which he has sworn to support. When Mr. Lincoln 
went to Congress in 1847, and, laying his hand upon the Holy 
Evangelists, made a solemn vow, in the presence of high Heaven, 
that he would be faithful to the Constitution, what did he mean, 
— the Constitution as he expounds it in Galesburgh, or the Con- 
stitution as he expounds it in Charleston. 

Mr. Lincoln has devoted considerable time to the circum- 
stance that at Ottawa I read a series of resolutions as having been 
adopted at Springfield, in this State, on the 4th or 5th of October, 
1854, which happened not to have been adopted there. He has 
used hard names ; has dared to talk about fraud, about forger}'-, 
and has insinuated that there was a conspiracy between Mr. 
Lanphier, Mr. Harris, and myself to perpetrate a forgery. Now, 
bear in mind that he does not deny that these resolutions were 



286 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

adopted in a majority of all the Republican counties of this 
State in that year ; he does not deny that the}'^ were declared to 
be the platform of this Republican party in the first Congressional 
District, in the second, in the third, and in many counties of the 
fourth, and that they thus became the platform of his party in a 
majority of the counties upon which he now relies for support ; 
he does not deny the truthfulness of the resolutions, but takes 
exception to the sfot on which they were adopted. He takes to 
himself great merit because he thinks they were not adopted on 
the right spot for me to use them against him, just as he was 
very severe in Congress upon the Government of his country 
when he thought that he had discovered that the Mexican war 
was not begun in the right s^ot , and was therefore unjust. He 
tries very hard to make out that there is something very extra- 
ordinary in the place where the thing was done, and not in the 
thing itself. I never believed before that Abraham Lincoln would 
be guilty of what he has done this day in regard to those resolu- 
tions. In the first place, the moment it was intimated to me that 
they had been adopted at Aurora and Rockford instead of Spring- 
field, I did not wait for him to call my attention to the fact, but 
led off", and explained in my first meeting after the Ottawa 
debate what the mistake was, and how it had been made. I 
supposed that for an honest man, conscious of his own rectitude, 
that explanation would be sufficient. I did not wait for him, 
after the mistake was made, to call my attention to it, but frankly 
explained it at once as an honest man would. I also gave the 
authority on which I had stated that these resolutions were adopted 
by the Springfield Republican Convention ; that I had seen them 
quoted by Major Harris in a debate in Congress, as having been 
adopted by the first Republican State Convention in Illinois, and 
that 1 had written to him and asked him for the authority as to 
the time and place of their adoption ; that, Major Harris being 
extremely ill, Charles H. Lanphier had written to me, for him, 
that they were adopted at Springfield on the 5th of October, 
1854, and had sent me a copy of the Springfield paper contain- 
ing them. I read them from the newspaper just as Mr. Lincoln 
reads the proceedings of meetings held years ago from the news- 
papers. After giving that explanation, I did not think there was 
an honest man in the State of Illinois who doubted that I had 
been led into the error, if it was such, innocently, in the way I 
detailed ; and I will now sa}'' that I do not now believe that there 
is an honest man on the face of the globe who will not regard 
with abhorrence and disgust Mr. Lincoln's insinuations of my 
complicity in that forgery, if it was a forgery. Does Mr. Lin- 
coln wish to push these things to the point of personal difficulties 
here? I commenced this contest by treating him courteously 
and kindly ; I always spoke of him in words of respect ; and in 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 287 

return he has sought, and is now seeking to divert public atten- 
tion from the enormity of his revolutionary principles by im- 
peaching men's sincerity and integrity, and inviting personal 
quarrels. 

I desired to conduct this contest with him like a gentleman ; 
but I spurn the insinuation of complicity and fraud made upon 
the simple circumstance of an editor of a newspaper having 
made a mistake as to the place where a thing was done, but not 
as to the thing itself. These resolutions were the platform of 
this Republican party of Mr. Lincoln's of that year. They 
were adopted in a majority of the Republican counties in the 
State ; and when I asked him at Ottawa whether they formed 
the platform upon which he stood, he did not answer, and I could 
not get an answer out of him. He then thought, as I thought, 
that those resolutions were adopted at the Springfield Conven- 
tion, but excused himself by saying that he was not there when 
they were adopted, but had gone to Tazewell court in order to 
avoid being present at the Convention. He saw them published 
as having been adopted at Springfield, and so did I, and he knew 
that if there was a mistake in regard to them, that I had nothing 
under heaven to do with it. Besides, you find that in all these 
northern counties where the Republican candidates are running 
pledged to him, that the Conventions which nominated them 
adopted that identical platform. One cardinal point in that plat- 
form which he shrinks from is this : that there shall be no more 
Slave States admitted into the Union, even if the people want 
them. Lovejoy stands pledged against the admission of any 
more Slave States. [" Right, so do we."] So do you, you say. 
Farnsworth stands pledged against the admission of any more 
Slave States. Washburne stands pledged the same way. The 
candidate for the Legislature who is running on Lincoln's ticket 
in Henderson and Warren, stands committed by his vote in the 
Legislature to the same thing; and I am informed, but do not 
know of the fact, that your candidate here is also so pledged. 
[" Hurrah for him 1 good ! "] Now, you Republicans all hurrah 
for him, and for the doctrine of "no more Slave States," and 
yet Lincoln tells you that his conscience will not permit him to 
sanction that doctrine, and complains because the resolutions I 
read at Ottawa made him, as a member of the party, responsible 
for sanctioning the doctrine of no more Slave States. You are 
one way, you confess, and he is, or pretends to be, the other; 
and yet you are both governed by -principle in supporting one 
another. If it be true, as I have shown it is, that the whole 
Republican party in the northern part of the State stands com- 
mitted to the doctrine of no more Slave States, and that this same 
doctrine is repudiated by the Republicans in the other part of 
the State, I wonder whether Mr. Lincoln and his party do not 



288 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

present the case which he cited from the Scriptures, of a house 
divided ajjainst itself which cannot stand ! I desire to know 
what are Mr. Lincoln's principles and the principles of his party? 
I hold, and the party with which I am identified hold, that the 
people of each State, old and new, have the right to decide the 
slavery question for themselves ; and when I used the remark 
that I did not care whether slavery was voted up or down, I used 
it in the connection that I was for allowing Kansas to do just as she 
pleased on the slavery question. I said that I did not care 
whether they voted slavery up or down, because they had the 
right to do as they pleased on the question, and therefore my 
action would not be controlled by any such consideration. Why 
cannot Abraham Lincoln, and the party with which he acts, 
speak out their principles so that they may be understood? Why 
do they claim to be one thing in one part of the State, and 
another in the other part? Whenever I allude to the Abolition 
doctrines, which he considers a slander to be charged with being 
in favor of, you all indorse them, and hurrah for them, not 
knowing that your candidate is ashamed to acknowledge them. 

I have a few words to say upon the Dred Scott decision, 
which has troubled the brain of Mr. Lincoln so much. He 
insists that that decision would carry slavery into the Free States, 
notwithstanding that the decision says directly the opposite, and 
goes into a long argument to make you believe that I am in favor 
of, and would sanction, the doctrine that would allow slaves to 
be brought here and held as slaves contrary to our Constitution 
and laws. Mr. Lincoln knew better when he asserted this ; he 
knew that one newspaper, and, so far as is within my knowl- 
edge, but one, ever asserted that doctrine, and that I was the 
first man in either House of Congress that read that article in 
debate, and denounced it on the floor of the Senate as revo- 
lutionar^^ When the Washington " Union" on the 17th of last 
November, published an article to that effect, I branded it at 
once, and denounced it ; and hence the "Union " has been pur- 
suing me ever since. Mr. Toombs, of Georgia, replied to me, 
and said that there was not a man in any of the Slave States 
south of the Potomac River that held any such doctrine. Mr. 
Lincoln knows that there is not a member of the Supreme Court 
who holds that doctrine ; he knows that every one of them, as 
shown by their opinions, holds the reverse. Why this attempt, 
then, to bring the Supreme Court into disrepute among the 
people? It looks as if there was an effort being made to destroy 
public confidence in the highest judicial tribunal on earth. Sup- 
pose he succeeds in destroying public confidence in the court, 
so that the people will not respect its decisions, but will feel at 
liberty to disregard them and resist the laws of the land, what 
will he have gained? He will have changed the government 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 289 

irom one of laws into that of a mob, in which the strong arm of 
violence will be substituted for the decisions of the courts ot 
justice. He complains because I did not go into an argument 
reviewing Chief Justice Taney's opinion, and the other opinions 
of the different judges, to determine whether their reasoning is 
right or wrong on the questions of law. What use would that 
be ? He wants to take an appeal from the Supreme Court to 
this meeting, to determine whether the questions of law were 
decided properly. He is going to appeal from the Supreme 
Court of the United States to every town meeting, in the hope 
that he can excite a prejudice against that court, and on the 
wave of that prejudice ride into the Senate of the United States, 
when he could not get there on his own principles or his own mer- 
its. Suppose he should succeed in getting into the Senate of the 
United States, what then will he have to do with the decision 
of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case? Can he re- 
verse that decision when he gets there? Can he act upon it? 
Has the Senate any right to reverse it or revise it? He will not 
pretend that it has. Then why drag the matter into this contest, 
unless for the purpose of making a false issue, by which he can 
direct public attention from the real issue. 

He has cited General Jackson in justification of the war he 
is making on the decision of the court. Mr. Lincoln misunder- 
stands the history of the country if he believes there is any 
parallel in the two cases. It is true that the Supreme Court once 
decided that if a Bank of the United States was a necessary 
fiscal agent of the government, it was constitutional, and if not, 
that it was unconstitutional, and also, that whether or not it was 
necessary for that purpose, was a political question for Congress, 
and not a judicial one for the courts to determine. Hence the 
court would not determine the bank unconstitutional. Jackson 
respected the decision, obeyed the law, executed it, and carried 
it into effect during its existence ; but after the charter of the 
bank expired, and a proposition was made to create a new bank. 
General Jackson said, "It is unnecessary and improper, and 
therefore I am against it on constitutional grounds as well as 
those of expediency." Is Congress bound to pass every Act 
that is constitutional? Why, there are a thousand things 
that are constitutional, but yet are inexpedient and unnecessary, 
and you surely would not vote for them merely because you had 
the right to? And because General Jackson would not do a 
thing which he had a right to do, but did not deem expedient 
or proper, Mr. Lincoln is going to justify himself in doing that 
which he has no right to do. I ask him whether he is not bound 
to respect and obey the decisions of the Supreme Court as well 
as I? The Constitution has created that court to decide all con- 
stitutional questions in the last resort ; and when such decisions 

38 



290 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

have been made, they become the law of the land, and you, and 
he, and myself, and every other good citizen, are bound by them. 
Yet he argues that I am bound by their decisions, and he is not. 
He says that their decisions are binding on Democrats, but not 
on Republicans. Are not Republicans bound by the laws of the 
land as well as Democrats? And when the court has fixed the 
construction of the Constitution on the validit}"- of a given law, 
is not their decision binding upon Republicans as well as upon 
Democrats? Is it possible that you Republicans have the right 
to raise your mobs and oppose the laws of the land and the con- 
stituted authorities, and yet hold us Democrats bound to obey 
them? My time is within half a minute of expiring, and all I 
have to say is, that I stand by the laws of the land. I stand by 
the Constitution as our fathers made it, by the laws as they are 
enacted, and by the decisions of the court, upon all points within 
their jurisdiction as they are pronounced by the highest tribunal 
on earth ; and any man who resists these must resort to mob law 
and violence to overturn the government of laws. 



SIXTH JOINT DEBATE. AT QUINCY. 

October 13, 1858. 
MR. LINCOLN'S SPEECH. 

Ladies and Gentlemen : I have had no immediate 
conference with Judge Douglas, but I will venture to say that he 
and I will perfectly agree that your entire silence, both when I 
speak and when he speaks, will be most agreeable to us. 

In the month of May, 1856, the elements in the State of 
Illinois, which have since been consolidated into the Republican 
party, assembled together in a State Convention at Bloomington. 
They adopted at that time what, in political language, is called 
a platform. In June of the same year the elements of the 
Republican party in the nation assembled together in a National 
Convention at Philadelphia. They adopted what is called the 
National Platform. In June, 1858, — the present year, — the 
Republicans of Illinois reassembled at Springfield, in State 
Convention, and adopted again their platform, as I suppose not 
differing in any essential particular from either of the former 
ones, but perhaps adding something in relation to the new 
developments of political progress in the country. 

The Convention that assembled in June last did me the 
honor, if it be one, and I esteem it such, to nominate me as their 
candidate for the United States Senate. I have supposed that, 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 291 

in entering upon this canvass, I stood generally upon these 
platforms. We are now met together on the 13th of October of 
the same year, only four months from the adoption of the last 
platform, and I am unaware that in this canvass, from the 
beginning until to-day, any one of our adversaries has taken 
hold of our platforms, or laid his finger upon anything that he 
calls wrong in them. 

In the very first one of these ioint discussions between 
Senator Douglas and myself. Senator Douglas, without alluding 
at all to these platforms, or any one of them, of which I have 
spoken, attempted to hold me responsible for a set of resolutions 
passed long before the meeting of either one of these Conven- 
tions of which I have spoken. And as a ground for holding me 
responsible for these resolutions, he assumed that they had been 
passed at a State Convention of the Republican party, and that 
I took part in that Convention. It was discovered afterward 
that this was erroneous, that the resolutions which he endeavored 
to hold me responsible for had not been passed by any State 
Convention anywhere, — had not been passed at Springfield, 
where he supposed they had, or assumed that they had, and that 
they had been passed in no Convention in which I had taken 
part. The Judge, nevertheless, was not willing to give up the 
point that he was endeavoring to make upon me, and he there- 
fore thought to still hold me to the point that he was endeavoring 
to make, by showing that the resolutions that he read had been 
passed at a local Convention in the northern part of the State, 
although it was not a local Convention that embraced my 
residence at all, nor one that reached, as I suppose, nearer than 
one hundred and fifty or two hundred miles of where I was 
when it met, nor one in which I took any part at all. He also 
introduced other resolutions, passed at other meetings, and by 
combining the whole, although they were all antecedent to the 
two State Conventions and the one National Convention I have 
mentioned, still he insisted, and now insists, as I understand, that 
I am in some way responsible for them. 

At Jonesboro, on our third meeting, I insisted to the Judge 
that I was in no way rightfully held responsible for the proceed- 
ings of this local meeting or Convention, in which I had taken 
no part, and in which I was in no way embraced ; but I insisted 
to him that if he thought I was responsible for every man or 
every set of men everywhere, who happen to be my friends, the 
rule ought to work both ways, and he ought to be responsible 
for the acts and resolutions of all men or sets of men who were 
or are now his supporters and friends, and gave him a pretty 
long string of resolutions, passed by men who are now his 
friends, and announcing doctrines for which he does not desire 
to be held responsible. 



292 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

This Still does not satisfy Judge Douglas. He still adheres 
to his proposition, that I am responsible for what some of my 
friends in different parts of the State have done, but that he is 
not responsible for what his have done. At least, so I understand 
him. But in addition to that, the Judge, at our meeting in 
Galesburgh, last week, undertakes to establish that I am guilty 
of a species of double dealing with the public ; that I make 
speeches of a certain sort in the north, among the Abolitionists, 
which I would not make in the south, and that I make speeches 
of a certain sort in the south which I would not make in the 
north. I apprehend, in the course I have marked out for myself, 
that I shall not have to dwell at very great length upon this 
subject. 

As this was done in the Judge's opening speech at Gales- 
burgh, I had an opportunity, as I had the middle speech then, of 
saying something in answer to it. He brought forward a quota- 
tion or two from a speech of mine delivered at Chicago, and 
then, to contrast with it, he brought forward on extract a speech 
of mine at Charleston, in which he insisted that I was greatly 
inconsistent, and insisted that his conclusion followed, that I was 
playing a double part, and speaking in one region one way, and 
in another region another way. I have not time now to dwell 
on this as long as I would like, and wish only now to requote 
that portion of my speech at Charleston which the Judge quoted, 
and then make some comments upon it. This he quotes from me 
as being delivered at Charleston, and I believe correctly: — 

" I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of 
bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the 
white and black races; that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor 
of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold 
office, nor to intermarry with white people ; and I will say, in addi- 
tion to this, that there is a physical difference between the white and 
black races which will ever forbid the two races living together on 
terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot 
so live while they do remain together, there must be the position of 
superior and inferior. I am as much as any other man in favor of 
having the superior position assigned to the white race." 

This, I believe, is the entire quotation from the Charleston 
speech, as Judge Douglas made it. His comments are as 
follows : — 

"Yes, here you find men who hurrah for Lincoln, and say he 
is right when he discards all distinction between races, or when he 
declares that he discards the doctrine that there is such a thing as a 
superior and inferior race ; and Abolitionists are required and ex- 
pected to vote for Mr. Lincoln because he goes for the equality of 
races, holding that in the Declaration of Independence the white 
man and negro were declared equal, and endowed by divine law with 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 293 

equality. And down South, with the old line Whigs, with the Ken- 
tuckians, the Virginians, and the Tennesseeans, he tells you that 
there is a physical difference between the races, making the one 
superior, the other inferior, and he is in favor of maintaining the 
superiority of the white race over the negro." 

Those are the Judge's comments. Now, I wish to show you 
that a month, or only lacking three days of a month, before I 
made the speech at Charleston, which the Judge quotes from, he 
had himself heard me say substantially the same thing. It was 
in our lirst meeting at Ottawa — and I will say a word about 
where it was, and the atmosphere it was in, after awhile — but at 
our first meeting, at Ottawa, I read an extract from an old speech 
of mine, made nearly four years ago, not merely to show my 
sentiments, but to show that my sentiments were long entertained 
and openly expressed ; in which extract I expressly declared that 
my own feelings would not admit a social and political equality 
between the white and black races, and that even if my own 
feelings would admit of it, I still knew that the public sentiment 
of the country would not, and that such a thing was an utter im- 
possibility, or substantially that. That extract from my old 
speech, the reporters, by some sort of accident passed over, and 
it was not reported. I lay no blame upon anybody. I suppose 
they thought that I would hand it over to them, and dropped re- 
porting while I was reading it, but afterward went away without 
getting it from me. At the end of that quotation from my old 
speech, which I read at Ottawa, I made the comments which 
were reported at that time, and which I will now read, and ask 
you to notice how very nearly they are the same as Judge Doug- 
las says were delivered by me, down in Egypt. After reading, I 
added these words : — 

" Now, gentlemen, I don't want to read at any great length; 
but this is the true complexion of all I have ever said in regard to 
the institution of slavery or the black race, and this is the whole of 
it : anything that argues me into his idea of perfect social and 
political equality with the negro, is but a specious and fantastical 
arrangement of words by which a man can prove a horse-chestnut to 
be a chestnut horse. I will say here, while upon this subject, that 
I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the insti- 
tution in the States where it exists. I believe I have no right to do 
so. I have no inclination to do so. I have no purpose to introduce 
political and social equality between the white and black races. 
There is a physical difference between the two which, in my judg- 
ment, will probably forever forbid their living together on the 
footing of perfect equality ; and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity 
that there must be a difference, I. as well as Judge Douglas, am in 
favor of the race to which 1 belong having the superior position. I 
have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that, notwith- 
standing all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not 



294 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

entitled to all the rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independ- 
ence. — the right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I 
hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree 
with Judge Douglas that he is not my e(|ual in many respects, cer- 
tainly not in color, perhaps not in intellectual and moral endowments ; 
but in the right to eat the bread, without the leave of anybody else, 
which his own hand earns, he is my equal, and the equal of Judge 
Douglas, and the equal of every other man." 

I have chiefly introduced this for the purpose of meeting the 
Judge's charge that the quotation he took from my Charleston 
speech was what I would say down South among the Kentuckians^ 
th^ Virginians, etc., but would not say in the regions in which 
was supposed to be more of the Abolition element. I now make 
this comment : That speech from which I have now read the 
quotation, and which is there given correctly — perhaps too much 
so for good taste — was made away up North in the Abolition 
District of this State^^r excellence^ in the Lovejoy District, — in the 
personal presence of Lovejoy, for he was on the stand with us when 
I made it. It had been made and put in print in that region only 
three days less than a month before the speech made at Charles- 
ton, the like of which Judge Douglas thinks I would not make 
where there was any Abolition element. I only refer to this 
matter to say that I am altogether unconscious of having attempted 
any double-dealing anywhere, that upon one occasion I may say 
one thing, and leave other things unsaid, and vice versa; but that 
I have said anything on one occasion that is inconsistent with 
what I have said elsewhere, I deny, — at least I deny it so far as 
the intenti9n is concerned. I find that I have devoted to this 
topic a larger portion of my time than I had intended. I wished 
to show, but I will pass it upon this occasion, that in the sentiment 
I have occasionally advanced upon the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, I am entirely borne out by the sentiments advanced by our 
old Whig leader, Henry Clay, and I have the book here to show 
it from ; but because I have already occupied more time than I 
intended to do on that topic, I pass over it. 

At Galesburgh, I tried to show that by the Dred Scott decision, 
pushed to its legitimate consequences, slavery would be estab- 
lished in all the States as well as in the Territories. I did this 
because, upon a former occasion, I had asked Judge Douglas 
whether, if the Supreme Court should make a decision declaring 
that the States had not the power to exclude slavery from their 
limits, he would adopt and follow that decision as a rule of polit- 
ical action ; and because he had not directly answered that ques- 
tion, but had merely contented himself with sneering at it, I again 
introduced it, and tried to show that the conclusion that I stated 
followed inevitably and logically from the proposition already 
decided by the court. Judge Douglas had the privilege of reply- 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 295 

ing to me at Galesburgh, and again he gave me no direct answer 
as to whether he would or would not sustain such a decision if 
made. I give him this third chance to say yes or no. He is not 
obliged to do either, — probably he will not do either ; but I give 
him the third chance. I tried to show then that this result, this 
conclusion, inevitably followed from the point already decided 
by the court. The Judge, in his reply, again sneers at the 
thought of the court making any such decision, and in the course 
of his remarks upon this subject uses the language which I will 
now read. Speaking of me, the Judge says : " He goes on and 
insists that the Dred Scott decision would carry slavery into the 
Free States, notwithstanding the decision itself says the con- 
trary." And he adds : " Mr. Lincoln knows that there is no 
member of the Supreme Court that holds that doctrine. He 
knows that every one of them in their opinions held the reverse." 
I especially introduce this subject again, for the purpose of 
saying that I have the Dred Scott decision here, and I will thank 
Judge Douglas to lay his finger upon the place in the entire 
opinions of the court where any one of them " says the contrary." 
It is very hard to affirm a negative with entire confidence. I say, 
however, that I have examined that decision with a good deal of 
care, as a lawyer examines a decision, and, so far as I have been 
able to do so, the court has nowhere in its opinions said that the 
States have the power to exclude slavery, nor have they used 
other language substantiall}^ that. I also say, so far as I can 
find, not one of the concurring Judges has said that the States can 
exclude slavery, nor said anything that was substantially that. 
The nearest approach that any one of them has made to it, so 
far as I can find, was by Judge Nelson, and the approach he 
made to it was exactly, in substance, the Nebraska Bill, — that 
the States had the exclusive power over the question ot 
slavery, so far as they are not limited by the Constitution of the 
United States. I asked the question, therefore, if the non-con- 
curring Judges, McLean or Curtis, had asked to get an express 
declaration that the States could absolutely exclude slavery from 
their limits, what reason have we to believe that it would not 
have been voted down by the majority of the Judges, just as 
Chase's amendment was voted down by Judge Douglas and his 
compeers when it was offered to the Nebraska Bill. 

Also, at Galesburgh, I said something in regard to those 
Springfield resolutions that Judge Douglas had attempted to use 
upon me at Ottawa, and commented at some length upon the 
fact that they were, as presented, not genuine. Judge Douglas 
in his reply to me seemed to be somewhat exasperated. He 
said he would never have believed that Abraham Lincoln, as he 
kindly called me, would have attempted such a thing as I had 
attempted upon that occasion ; and among other expressions 



296 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

which he used toward me, was that I dared to say forgery, — 
that I had dared to say forgery [turning to Judge Douglas] . Yes, 
Judge, I did dare to say forgery. But in this political canvass, 
the Judge ought to remember that I was not the first who dared 
to say forgery. At Jacksonville, Judge Douglas made a speech 
in answer to something said by Judge Trumbull, and at the close 
of what he said upon that subject, he dared to say that Trumbull 
had forged his evidence. He said, too, that he should not con- 
cern himself with Trumbull any more, but thereafter he should 
hold Lincoln responsible for the slanders upon him. When I 
met him at Charleston after that, although I think that I should 
not have noticed the subject if he had not said he would hold me 
responsible for it, I spread out before him the statements of the 
evidence that Judge Trumbull had used, and I asked Judge 
Douglas, piece by piece, to put his finger upon one piece of all 
that evidence that he would say was a forgery ! When I went 
through with each and every piece, Judge Douglas did not dare 
then to say that any piece of it was a forgery. So it seems that 
there are some things that Judge Douglas dares to do, and some 
that he dares not to do. 

A voice : It's the same thing with you. 

Mr. Lincoln: Yes, sir, it's the same thing with me. I do 
dare to say forgery when it's true, and don't dare to say forgery 
when it's false. Now I will say here to this audience and to 
Judge Douglas, I have not dared to say he committed a forgery, 
and I never shall until I know it ; but I did dare to say — just to 
suggest to the Judge — that a forgery had been committed, which 
by his own showing had been traced to him and two of his 
friends. I dared to suggest to him that he had expressly prom- 
ised in one of his public speeches to investigate that matter, and 
I dared to suggest to him that there was an implied promise 
that when he investigated it he would make known the result. 
I dared to suggest to the Judge that he could not expect to be 
quite clear of suspicion of that fraud, for since the time that prom- 
ise was made he had been with those friends, and had not kept 
his promise in regard to the investigation and the report upon it. 
I am not a very daring man, but I dared that much. Judge, and 
I am not much scared about it yet. When the Judge says he 
wouldn't have believed of Abraham Lincoln that he would have 
made such an attempt as that, he reminds me of the fact 
that he entered upon this canvass with the purpose to treat me 
courteously ; that touched me somewhat. It sets me to thinking. 
I was aware, when it was first agreed that Judge Douglas and I 
were to have these seven joint discussions, that they were the 
successive acts of a drama, — perhaps I should say, to be enacted, 
not merely in the face of audiences like this, but in the face of 
the nation, and to some extent, by my relation to him, and not ■ 
from anything in myself, in the face of the world ; and I am fi 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 297 

anxious that they should be conducted with dignity and in the 
good temper which would be befitting the vast audience before 
which it was conducted. But when Judge Douglas got home 
from Washington and made his first speech in Chicago, the 
evening afterward I made some sort of a reply to it. His second 
speech was made at Bloomington, in which he commented upon 
my speech at Chicago, and said that I had used language in- 
geniously contrived to conceal my intentions, — or words to that 
effect. Now, I understand that this is an imputation upon my 
veracity and my candor. I do not know what the Judge under- 
stood by it, but in our first discussion, at Ottawa, he led off 
by charging a bargain, somewhat corrupt in its character, upon 
Trumbull and myself, — that we had entered into a bargain, one 
of the terms of which was that Trumbull was to Abolitionize the 
old Democratic party, and I (Lincoln) was to Abolitionize the old 
Whig party ; I pretending to be as good an old line Whig as 
ever. Judge Douglas may not understand that he implicated my 
truthfulness and my honor when he said I was doing one thing 
and pretending another ; and I misunderstood him if he thought 
he was treating me in a dignified way, as a man of honor and 
truth, as he now claims he was disposed to treat me. Even after 
that time, at Galesburgh, when he brings forward an extract 
from a speech made at Chicago, and an ex'tract from a speech 
made at Charleston, to prove that I was trying to play a double 
part, — that I was trying to cheat the public, and get votes upon 
one set of principles at one place, and upon another set of prin- 
ciples at another place, — I do not understand but what he im- 
peaches my honor, my veracity, and my candor ; and because 
he does this, I do not understand that I am bound, if I see a 
.truthful ground for it, to keep my hands ofl" of him. As soon as 
I learned that Judge Douglas was disposed to treat me in this 
way, I signified in one of my speeches that I should be driven to 
draw upon whatever of humble resources I might have, — to 
adopt a new course with him. I was not entirely sure that I 
should be able to hold my own with him, but I at least had the 
purpose made to do as w^ell as I could upon him ; and now I say 
that I will not be the first to cry " hold." I think it originated 
with the Judge and when he quits, I probably will. But I shall 
not ask anj^^ favors at all. He asks me, or he asks the audience, 
if I wish to push this matter to the point of personal difficulty. 
I tell him, no. He did not make a mistake, in one of his early 
speeches, when he called me an '* amiable " man, though per- 
haps he did when he called me an " intelligent" man. It really 
hurts me very much to suppose that I have wronged anybody on 
earth. I again tell him, no ! I very much prefer, when this 
canvass shall be over, however it may result, that we at least 
part without any bitter recollections of personal difficulties. 

39 



298 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

The Judge, in his concluding speech at Galesburgh, says 
that I was pushing this matter to a personal difficulty, to avoid 
the responsibility for the enormity of my principles. I say to the 
Judge and this audience, now, that I will again state our prin- 
ciples as well as I hastily can, in all their enormity, and if the 
Judge hereafter chooses to confine himself to a war upon these 
principles, he will probably not find me departing from the same 
course. 

We have in this nation this element of domestic slavery. It 
is a matter of absolute certainty that it is a disturbing element. 
It is the opinion of all the great men who have expressed an 
opinion upon it, that it is a dangerous element. We keep up a 
controversy in regard to it. That controversy necessarily 
springs from difference of opinion ; and if we can learn exactly — 
can reduce to the lowest elements — what that difference of opinion 
is, we perhaps shall be better prepared for discussing the different 
systems of policy that we would propose in regard to that 
disturbing element. I suggest that the difierence of opinion, 
reduced to its lowest of terms, is no other than the difference 
between the men who think slavery a wrong, and those who do 
not think it wrong. The Republican party think it wrong ; we 
think it is a moral, a social, and a political wrong. We think 
it as a wrong not confining itself merely to the persons or the 
States where it exists, but that it is a wrong in its tendency, to 
say the least, that extends itself to the existence of the whole 
nation. Because we think it wrong, we propose a course of 
policy that shall deal with it as a wrong. We deal with it as 
with any other wrong, in so far as we can prevent its growing 
any larger, and so deal with it that in the nin of time there may be 
some promise of an end to it. We have a due regard to the 
actual presence of it amongst us, and the difficulties of getting 
rid of it in any satisfactory way, and all the constitutional obli- 
gations thrown about it. I suppose that in reference both to its 
actual existence in the nation, and to our constitutional obliga- 
tions, we have no right at all to disturb it in the States where it 
exists, and we profess that we have no more inclination to disturb 
it than we have the right to do it. We go further than that : we 
don't propose to disturb it where, in one instance, we think the 
Constitution would permit us. We think the Constitution would 
permit us to disturb it in the District of Columbia. Still, we do 
not propose to do that, unless it should be in terms which I don't 
suppose the nation is very likely soon to agree to, — the terms of 
making the emancipation gradual, and compensating the unwil- 
ling owners. Where we suppose we have the constitutional 
right, we restrain ourselves in reference to the actual existence 
of the institution and the difficulties thrown about it. We also 
oppose it as an evil so far as it seeks to spread itself. We insist 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 299 

on the policy that shall restrict it to its present limits. We don't 
suppose that in doing this we violate anything due to the actual 
presence of the institution, or anything due to the constitutional 
guarantees thrown around it. 

We oppose the Dred Scott decision in a certain way, upon 
which I ought perhaps to address you a few words. We do not 
propose that when Dred Scott has been decided to be a slave by 
the court, we, as a mob, will decide him to be free. We do not 
propose that, when any other one, or one thousand, shall be 
decided by that court to be slaves, we will in any violent way 
disturb the rights of property thus settled ; but we nevertheless 
do oppose that decision as a political rule which shall be binding 
on the voter to vote for nobody who thinks it wrong, which shall 
be binding on the members of Congress or the President to 
favor no measure that does not actually concur with the princi- 
ples of that decision. We do not propose to be bound by it as a 
political rule in that way, because we think it lays the foundation » 
not merely of enlarging and spreading out what we consider an 
evil, but it lays the foundation for spreading that evil into the 
States themselves. We propose so resisting it as to have it 
reversed if we can, and a new judicial rule established upon this 
subject. 

I will add this, that if there be any man who does not believe 
that slavery is wrong in the three aspects which I have men- 
tioned, or in any one of them, that man is misplaced, and 
ought to leave us. While, on the other hand, it there be any 
man in the Republican party who is impatient over the necessity 
springing from its actual presence, and is impatient of the consti- 
tutional guarantees thrown around it, and would act in disregard 
of these, he too is misplaced, standing with us. He will find his 
place somewhere else ; for we have a due regard, so far as we 
are capable of understanding them, for all these things. This, 
gentlemen, as well as I can give it, is a plain statement of our 
principles in all their enormity. 

I will say now that there is a sentiment in the country con- 
trary to me, — a sentiment which holds that slavery is not wrong, 
and therefore it goes for the policy that does not propose dealing 
with it as a wrong. That policy is the Democratic policy, and 
that sentiment is the Democratic sentiment. If there be a doubt 
in the mind of any one of this vast audience that this is really 
the central idea of the Democratic party in relation to this subject, 
I ask him to bear with me while I state a few things tending, as 
I think, to prove that proposition. In the first place, the leading 
man — I think I may do my friend Judge Douglas the honor of 
calling him such — advocating the present Democratic policy, 
never himself says it is wrong. He has the high distinction, so 
far as I know, of never having said slavery is either right or 



300 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

wrong. Almost everybody else says one or the other, but the 
Judge never does. If there be a man in the Democratic party 
who thinks it is wrong, and yet clings to that party, I suggest to 
him, in the first place, that his leader don't talk as he does, for 
he never says that it is wrong. In the second place, I suggest 
to him that if he will examine the policy proposed to be carried 
forward, he will find that he carefully excludes the idea that 
there is anything wrong in it. If you will examine the arguments 
that are made on it, you will find that every one carefully excludes 
the idea that there is anything wrong in slavery. Perhaps that 
Democrat who says he is as much opposed to slavery as I am, 
will tell me that I am wrong about this. I wish him to examine 
his own course in regard to this matter a moment, and then see if 
his opinion will not be changed a little. You say it is wrong ; but 
don't you constantly object to anybody else saying so? Do you 
not constantly argue that this is not the right place to oppose it? 
You say it must not be opposed in the Free States, because 
slavery is not here ; it must not be opposed in the Slave States, 
because it is there ; it must not be opposed in politics, because 
that will make a fuss ; it must not be opposed in the pulpit, 
because it is not religion. Then where is the place to oppose it? 
There is no suitable place to oppose it. There is no plan in the 
country to oppose this evil overspreading the continent, which 
you say 3'ourself is coming. Frank Blair and Gratz Brown 
tried to get up a system of gradual emancipation in Missouri, 
had an election in August, and got beat, and you, Mr. Democrat, 
threw up your hat, and hallooed " Hurrah for Democracy." So 
I say, again, that in regard to the arguments that are made, 
when Judge Douglas says he " don't care whether slavery is 
voted up or voted down," whether he means that as an individual 
expression of sentiment, or only as a sort of statement of his 
views on national policy, it is alike true to say that he can thus 
argue logically if he don't see anything wrong in it ; but he can- 
not say so logically if he admits that slavery is wrong. He 
cannot say that he would as soon see a wrong voted up as voted 
down. When Judge Douglas says that whoever or whatever 
community wants slaves, the}'' have a right to have them, he is 
perfectly logical, if there is nothing wrong in the institution ; 
but if you admit that it is wrong, he cannot logically say that 
anybody has a right to do wrong. When he savs that slave 
property and horse and hog property are alike to be allowed to 
go into the Territories, upon the principles of equality, he is 
reasoning truly, if there is no difference between them as 
propert}' ; but if the one is property held rightfully, and the 
other is wrong, then there is no equality between the right and 
wrong ; so that, turn it in any way you can, in all the arguments 
sustaining the Democratic policy, and in that policy itself, there 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 301 

is a careful, studied exclusion of the idea that there is anything 
wrong in slavery. Let us understand this. I am not, just here, 
trying to prove that we are right, and they are wrong. I have 
been stating where we and they stand, and trying to show what 
is the real difference between us ; and I now say that whenever 
we can get the question distinctly stated, can get all these men 
who believe that slavery is in some of these respects wrong, to 
stand and act with us in treating it as a wrong, — then, and not 
till then, I think we will in some way come to an end of this 
slavery agitation. 



MR. DOUGLAS'S REPLY. 

Ladies and Gentlemen : Permit me to say that unless 
silence is observed it will be impossible for me to be heard by 
this immense crowd, and my friends can confer no higher favor 
upon me than by omitting all expressions of applause or appro- 
bation. I desire to be heard rather than to be applauded. I 
wish to address m3^self to your reason, your judgment, your 
sense of justice, and not to your passions. 

I regret that Mr. Lincoln should have deemed it proper for 
him to again indulge in gross personalities and base insinuations 
in regard to the Springfield resolutions. It has imposed upon me 
the necessity of using some portion of my time for the purpose 
of calling your attention to the facts of the case, and it will 
then be for you to say what you think of a man who can 
predicate such a charge upon the circumstances as he has in this. 
I had seen the platform adopted by a Republican Congressional 
Convention held in Aurora, the Second Congressional District, 
in September, 1854, published as purporting to be the platform of 
the Republican party. That platform declared that the Republi- 
can party was pledged never to admit another Slave State into 
the Union, and also that it was pledged to prohibit slavery in all 
the Territories of the United States, not only all that we then 
had, but all that we should thereafter acquire, and to repeal 
unconditionally the Fugitive Slave law, abolish slavery in the 
District of Columbia, and prohibit the slave-trade between the 
different States. These and other articles against slavery were 
contained in this platform, and unanimously adopted by the 
Republican Congressional Convention in that District. I had 
also seen that the Republican Congressional Conventions at 
Rockford,in the First District, and at Bloomington, in the Third, 
had adopted the same platform that year, nearly word for word, 
and had declared it to be the platform of the Republican party. 
I had noticed that Major Thomas L. Harris, a member of Con- 



302 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

gress from the Springfield District, had referred to that platform 
in a speech in Congress as having been adopted by the first 
Republican State Convention which assembled in Illinois. 
When I had occasion to use the fact in this canvass, I wrote to 
Major Harris to know on what day that Convention was held,, 
and to ask him to send me its proceedings. He being sick, 
Charles H. Lanphier answered my letter by sending me the 
published proceedings of the Convention held at Springfield on 
the 5th of October, 1854, as they appeared in the report of the 
" State Register." I read those resolutions from that newspaper 
the same as any of you would refer back and quote any fact 
from the files of a newspaper which had published it. Mr. 
Lincoln pretends that after I had so quoted those resolutions he 
discovered that they had never been adopted at Springfield. He 
does not deny their adoption by the Republican party at Aurora, 
at Bloomington, and at Rockford, and by nearly all the Republi- 
can County Conventions in Northern Illinois where his party is 
in a majority, but merely because they were not adopted on the 
''■sfoV on which I said they were, he chooses to quibble about 
the place rather than meet and discuss the merits of the resolu- 
tions themselves. I stated when I quoted them that I did so 
from the "State Register." I gave my authority. Lincoln 
believed at the time, as he has since admitted, that they had 
been adopted at Springfield, as published. Does he believe now 
that I did not tell the truth when I quoted those resolutions? 
He knows, in his heart, that I quoted them in good faith 
believing at the time that they had been adopted at Springfield. 
I would consider myself an infamous wretch, if, under such 
circumstances, I could charge any man with being a part}^ to a 
trick or a fraud. And I will tell him, too, that it will not do to 
charge a forgery on Charles H. Lanphier or Thomas L. Harris. 
No man on earth, who knows them, and knows Lincoln, would 
take his oath against their word. There are not two men in the 
State of Illinois who have higher characters for truth, for 
integrity, for moral character, and for elevation of tone, as 
gentlemen, than Mr. Lanphier and Mr. Harris. Any man who 
attempts to make such charges as Mr. Lincoln has indulged in 
against them, only proclaims himself a slanderer. 

I will now show you that I stated with entire fairness, as 
soon as it was made known to me, that there was a mistake 
about the spot where the resolutions had been adopted, although 
their truthfulness, as a declaration of the principles of the 
Republican party, had not and could not be questioned. I did 
not wait for Lincoln to point out the mistake, but the moment I 
discovered it, I made a speech, and published it to the world » 
correcting the error. I corrected it myself, as a gentleman and 
an honest man, and as I always feel proud to do when I have 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 303 

made a mistake. I wish Mr. Lincoln could show that he has 
acted with equal fairness and truthfulness when I have convinced 
him that he has been mistaken. I will give you an illustration 
to show you how he acts in a similar case : In a speech at 
Springfield, he charged Chief Justice Taney and his associates, 
President Pierce, President Buchanan, and myself, with having 
entered into a conspiracy at the time the Nebraska bill was 
introduced, by which the Dred Scott decision was to be made by 
the Supreme Court, in order to carry slavery everywhere under 
the Constitution. I called his attention to the fact that at the 
time alluded to, to-wit, the introduction of the Nebraska bill, it 
was not possible that such a conspiracy could have been entered 
into, for the reason that the Dred Scott case had never been 
taken before the Supreme Court, and was not taken before it for 
a year after ; and I asked him to take back that charge. Did he 
do it? I showed him that it was impossible that the charge 
could be true ; I proved it by the record ; and I then called 
upon him to retract his false charge. What was his answer? 
Instead of coming out like an honest man and doing so, he 
reiterated the charge, and said that if the case had not gone up 
to the Supreme Court from the courts of Missouri at the time he 
charged that the Judges of the Supreme Court entered into the 
conspiracy, yet, that there was an understanding with the Demo- 
cratic owners of Dred Scott that they would take it up. I have 
since asked him who the Democratic owners of Dred Scott were, 
but he could not tell, and why? Because there were no such 
Democratic owners in existence. Dred Scott at the time was 
owned by the Rev. Dr. Chaffee, an Abolition member of Con- 
gress, of Springfield, Massachusetts, in right of his wife. He 
was owned by one of Lincoln's friends, and not by Democrats 
at all ; his case was conducted in court by Abolition lawyers, so 
that both the prosecution and the defence were in the hands of 
the Abolition political friends of Mr. Lincoln. Notwithstanding 
I thus proved by the record that his charge against the Supreme 
Court was false, instead of taking it back, he resorted to another 
false charge to sustain the infamy of it. He also charged Presi- 
dent Buchanan with having been a party to the conspiracy. I 
directed his attention to the fact that the charge could not 
possibly be true, for the reason that at the time specified, Mr. 
Buchanan was not in America, but was three thousand miles off, 
representing the United States at the Court of St. James, and 
had been there for a year previous, and did not return until three 
years afterward. Yet I never could get Mr. Lincoln to take 
back his false charge, although I have called upon him over and 
over again. He refuses to do it, and either remains silent, or 
resorts to other tricks to try and palm his slander off on the 
country. Therein you will find the difference between Mr. 



304 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Lincoln and myself. When I make a mistake, as an honest man 
I correct it without being asked to do so ; but when he makes a 
false charge, he sticks to it, and never corrects it. One word more 
in regard to these resolutions ; I quoted them at Ottawa merely 
to ask Mr. Lincoln whether he stood on that platform. That 
was the purpose for which I quoted them. I did not think that 
I had a right to put idle questions to him, and I first laid a 
foundation for my questions by showing that the principles 
which I wished him either to affirm or deny had been adopted 
by some portion of his friends, at least, as their creed. Hence 
I read the resolutions and put the questions to him ; and he then 
refused to answer them. Subsequently, one week afterward, he 
did answer a part of them, but the others he has not answered 
up to this day. 

Now, let me call your attention for a moment to the answers 
which Mr. Lincoln made at Freeport to the questions which I 
propounded him at Ottawa, based upon the platform adopted by 
a majority of the Abolition counties of the State, which now, as 
then, supported him. In answer to my question w^hether he 
indorsed the Black Republican principle of " no more Slave 
States," he answered that he was not pledged against the 
admission of any more Slave States, but that he would be very 
sorry if he should ever be placed in a position where he would 
have to vote on the question ; that he would rejoice to know that 
no more Slave States would be admitted into the Union. " But," 
he added, "if slavery shall be kept out of the Territories during 
the Territorial existence of any one given Territorj'-, and then 
the people shall, having a fair chance and a clear field when they 
come to adopt the constitution, do such an extraordinary thing as 
to adopt a slave constitution, uninfluenced by the actual presence 
of the institution among them, I see no alternative, if we own 
the country, but to admit them into the Union." The point I 
wish him to answer is this : Suppose Congress should not pro- 
hibit slavery in the Territory, and it applied for admission with 
a constitution recognizing slavery, then how would he vote? His 
answer at Freeport does not apply to any territory in America. 
I ask you [turning to Lincoln], will 3'^ou vote to admit Kansas 
into the Union, with just such a constitution as her people want, 
with slavery or without, as they shall determine? He will not 
answer. I have put that question to him time and time again, 
and have not been able to get an answer out of him. I ask you 
again, Lincoln, will you vote to admit New Mexico, when she 
has the requisite population, with such a constitution as her 
people adopt, either recognizing slavery or not, as they shall 
determine? He will not answer. I put the same question to 
him in reference to Orecfon and the new States to be carved out 
of Texas, in pursuance of the contract between Texas and the 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 305 

United States, and he will not answer. He will not answer these 
questions in reference to any territory now in existence, but says 
that if Congress should prohibit slavery in a Territory, and when 
its people asked for admission as a State, they should adopt 
slavery as one of their institutions, that he supposes he would 
have to let it come in. I submit to you whether that answer of 
his to my question does not justify me in saying that he has a 
fertile genius in devising language to conceal his thoughts. I 
ask you whether there is an intelligent man in America who 
does not believe that that answer was made for the purpose of 
concealing what he intended to do. He wished to make the old 
line Whigs believe that he would stand by the Compromise 
Measures of 1850, which declared that the States might come 
into the Union with slavery, or without, as they pleased, while 
Lovejoy and his Abolition allies up north explained to the 
Abolitionists that in taking this ground he preached good 
Abolition doctrine, because his proviso would not apply to any 
territory in America, and therefore there was no chance of his 
being governed by it. It would have been quite easy for him 
to have said that he would let the people of a State do just as 
they pleased, if he desired to convey such an idea. Why did he 
not do it? He would not answer my question directly, because 
up north, the Abolition creed declares that there shall be no more 
Slave States, while down South, in Adams County, in Coles, and 
in Sangamon, he and his friends are afraid to advance that 
doctrine. Therefore, he gives an evasive and equivocal answer, 
to be construed one way in the south and another way in the 
north, which, when analyzed, it is apparent is not an answer at 
all with reference to any territory now in existence. 

Mr. Lincoln complains that in my speech the other day at 
Galesburgh, I read an extract from a speech delivered by him at 
Chicago, and then another from his speech at Charleston, and 
compared them, thus showing the people that he had one set of 
principles in one part of the State, and another in the other part. 
And how does he answer that charge? Why, he quotes from 
his Charleston speech as I quoted from it, and then quotes 
another extract from a speech which he made at another place, 
which he says is the same as the extract from his speech at 
Charleston ; but he does not quote the extract from his Chicago 
speech, upon which I convicted him of double-dealing. I quoted 
from his Chicago speech to prove that he held one set of 
principles up north among the Abolitionists, and from his 
Charleston speech to prove that he held another set down at 
Charleston and in southern Illinois. In his answer to this 
charge, he ignores entirely his Chicago speech, and merely 
argues that he said the same thing which he said at Charleston 
at another place. If he did, it follows that he has twice, instead 

40 



306 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

of once, held one creed in one part of the State, and a different 
creed in another part. Up at Chicago, in the opening of the 
campaign, he reviewed my reception speech, and undertook to 
answer my argument attacking his favorite doctrine of negro 
equality. I had shown that it was a falsification of the Declara- 
tion of Independence to pretend that that instrument applied to 
and included negroes in the clause declaring that all men were 
created equal. What was Lincoln's reply? I will read from 
his Chicago speech and the one which he did not quote, and dare 
not quote, in this part of the State. He said : — 

" I should like to know, if taking this old Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle, and 
making exceptions to it, where will it stop? If one man says it does 
not mean a negro, why may not another man say it does not mean 
another man? If that declaration is not the truth, let us get this 
statute book in which we find it, and tear it out." 

There you find that Mr. Lincoln told the Abolitionists of 
Chicago that if the Declaration of Independence did not declare 
that the negro was created by the Almighty the equal of the 
white man, that you ought to take that instrument and tear out 
the clause which says that all men were created equal. But let 
me call your attention to another part of the same speech. You 
know that in his Charleston speech, an extract from which he 
has read, he declared that the negro belongs to an inferior race, 
is physically inferior to the white man, and should always be 
kept in an inferior position. I will now read to you what he 
said at Chicago on that point. In concluding his speech at that 
place, he remarked : — 

" My friends, I have detained you about as long as I desire to do, 
and I have only to say, let us discard all this quibbling about this man 
and the other man, this race, and that race, and the other race being 
inferior, and therefore they must be placed in an inferior position, 
discarding our standard that we have left us. Let us discard all these 
things, and unite as one people throughout this land until we shall 
once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal." 

Thus you see that when addressing the Chicago Abolition- 
ists he declared that all distinctions of race must be discarded 
and blotted out, because the negro stood on an equal footing 
with the white man ; that if one man said the Declaration of 
Independence did ilot mean a negro when it declared all men 
created equal, that another man would say that it did not mean 
another man ; and hence we ought to discard all difference 
between the negro race and all other races, and declare them all 
created equal. Did old Giddings, when he came down among 
you four years ago, preach more radical Abolitionism than this ? 
Did Lovejoy, or Lloyd Garrison, or Wendell Phillips, or Fred 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 307 

Douglass ever take higher Abolition grounds than that? Lincoln 
told you that I had charged him with getting up these personal 
attacks to conceal the enormity of his principles, and then com- 
menced talking about something else, omitting to quote this part 
of his Chicago speech which contained the enormity of his 
principles to which I alluded. He knew that I alluded to his 
negro-equality doctrines when I spoke of the enormity of his 
principles, yet he did not find it convenient to answer on that 
point. Having shown you what he said in his Chicago speech 
in reference to negroes being created equal to white men, and 
about discarding all distinctions between the two races, I will 
again read to you what he said at Charleston : — 

" I will say then, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of 
bringing about in any way, the social and political equality of the 
white and black races ; that I am not nor ever have been in favor of 
making voters of the free negroes, or jurors, or qualifying them to 
hold office, or having them to marry with white people. I will say 
in addition, that there is a physical difference between the white and 
black races, which, I suppose, will forever forbid the two races living 
together upon terms of social and political equality, and inasmuch as 
they cannot so live, that while they do remain together, there must 
be the position of superior and inferior, that I as much as any other 
man am in favor of the superior position being assigned to the white 
man." 

A voice : That's the doctrine. 

Mr. Douglas : Yes, sir, that is good doctrine ; but Mr. 
Lincoln is afraid to advocate it in the latitude of Chicago, where 
he hopes to get his votes. It is good doctrine in the anti- 
Abolition counties for him, and his Chicago speech is good 
doctrine in the Abolition counties. I assert, on the authority of 
these two speeches of Mr. Lincoln, that he holds one set of 
principles in the Abolition counties, and a different and contra- 
dictory set in the other counties. I do not question that he said 
at Ottawa what he quoted ; but that only convicts him further, 
by proving that he has twice contradicted himself, instead of 
once. Let me ask him why he cannot avow his principles the same 
in the north as in the south, — the same in every county, — if he 
has a conviction that they are just? But I forgot, — he would 
not be a Republican, if his principles would apply alike to every 
part of the country. The party to which he belongs is bounded 
and limited by geographical lines. With their principles, they 
cannot even cross the Mississippi River on your ferry-boats. 
They cannot cross over the Ohio into Kentucky. Lincoln 
himself cannot visit the land of his fathers, the scenes of his 
childhood, the graves of his ancestors, and carry his Abolition 
principles, as he declared them at Chicago, with him. 



308 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

This Republican organization appeals to the North against 
the South ; it appeals to Northern passion, Northern prejudice, 
and Northern ambition, against Southern people. Southern 
States, and Southern institutions, and its only hope of success is 
by that appeal. Mr. Lincoln goes on to justify himself in 
making a war upon slavery upon the ground that Frank Blair 
and Gratz Brown did not succeed in their warfare upon the 
institutions in Missouri. Frank Blair was elected to Congress 
in 1856, from the State of Missouri, as a Buchanan Democrat, 
and he turned Fremonter after the people elected him, thus 
belonging to one party before election, and another afterward. 
What right then had he to expect, after having thus cheated his 
constituency, that they would support him at another election? 
Mr. Lincoln thinks that it is his duty to preach a crusade in the 
Free States against slavery, because it is a crime, as he believes, 
and ought to be extinguished, and because the people of the 
Slave States will never abolish it. How is he going to abolish 
it? Down in the southern part of the State he takes the ground 
openly that he will not interfere with slavery where it exists, and 
says that he is not now and never was in favor of interfering 
with slavery where it exists in the States. Well, if he is not in 
favor of that, how does he expect to bring slavery in a course of 
ultimate extinction? How can he extinguish it in Kentucky, in 
Virginia, in all the Slave States by his policy, if he will not 
pursue a policy which will interfere with it in the States where 
it exists? In his speech at Springfield before the Abolition, or 
Republican, Convention, he declared his hostility to any more 
Slave States in this language : — 

" Under the operation of that policy the agitation has not only 
not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it ^vill 
not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. ' A 
house divided against itself cannot stand,' I believe this government 
cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free. I do not ex- 
pect the Union to be dissolved, I do not expect the house to fall ; but 
I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, 
or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further 
spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the 
belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates 
will push it forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the 
States, — old as well as new, North as well as South," 

Mr. Lincoln there told his Abolition friends that this govern-' 
ment could not endure permanently, divided into Free and Slave 
States as our fathers made it, and that it must become all free or 
all slave ; otherwise, that the government could not exist. How 
then does Lincoln propose to save the Union, unless by compel- 
ling all the States to become free, so that the house shall not be 
divided against itself? He intends making them all free ; he will 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 309 

preserve the Union in that way ; and yet he is not going to inter- 
fere with slavery where it now exists. How is he going to bring 
it about? Why, he will agitate, he will induce the North to 
agitate, until the South shall be worried out and forced to 
abolish slaver}^ Let us examine the policy by which that is to 
be done. He first tells you that he would proliibit slavery every- 
where in the Territories. He would thus confine slavery within 
its present limits. When he thus gets it confined, and sur- 
rounded, so that it cannot spread, the natural laws of increase 
will go on until the negroes will be so plenty that they cannot 
live on the soil. He will hem them in until starvation seizes 
them, and by starving them to death, he will put slavery in the 
course of ultimate extinction. If he is not going to interfere 
with slavery in the States, but intends to interfere and prohibit 
it in the Territories, and thus smother slavery out, it naturally 
follows that he can extinguish it only by extinguishing the negro 
race ; for his policy would drive them to starvation. This is the 
humane and Christian remedy that he proposes for the great 
crime of slavery ! 

He tells you that I will not argue the question whether 
slavery is right or wrong. I tell you why I will not do it. I 
hold that, under the Constitution of the United States, each State 
of this Union has a right to do as it pleases on the subject 
of slavery. In Illinois we have exercised that sovereign right by 
prohibiting slavery within our own limits. I approve of that 
line of policy. We have performed our whole duty in Illinois. 
We have gone as far as we have a right to go under the Consti- 
tution of our common country. It is none of our business 
whether slavery exists in Missouri or not. Missouri is a 
sovereign State of this Union, and has the same right to decide 
the slavery question for herself that Illinois has to decide it for 
herself. Hence I do not choose to occupy the time allotted to 
me in discussing a question that we have no right to act upon. 
I thought that you desired to hear us upon those questions com- 
ing within our constitutional power or action. Lincoln will not 
discuss these. What one question has he discussed that comes 
within the power or calls for the action or interference of an 
United States Senator? He is going to discuss the rightfulness 
of slavery when Congress cannot act upon it either way. He 
wishes to discuss the merits of the Dred Scott decision when, 
under the Constitution, a senator has no right to interfere with 
the decision of judicial tribunals. He wants your exclusive 
attention to two questions that he has no power to act upon ; to 
two questions that he could not vote upon if he was in Congress ; 
to two questions that are not practical, — in order to conceal 
your attention from other questions which he might be required 
to vote upon should he ever become a member of Congress. He 



310 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

tells you that he does not like the Dred Scott decision. Suppose 
he does not, how is he going to help himself? He says that he will 
reverse it. How will he reverse it? I know of but one mode 
of reversing judicial decisions, and that is by appealing from the 
inferior to the superior court. But I have never yet learned how 
or where an appeal could be taken from the Supreme Court of 
the United States ! The Dred Scott decision was pronounced 
by the highest tribunal on earth. From that decision there is no 
appeal, this side of Heaven. Yet, Mr. Lincoln says he is going 
to reverse that decision. By what tribunal will he reverse it? 
Will he appeal to a mob? Does he intend to appeal to violence, 
to Lynch law? Will he stir up strife and rebellion in the land, 
and overthrow the court by violence? He does not deign to 
tell you how he will reverse the Dred Scott decision, but keeps 
appealing each day from the Supreme Court of the United 
States to political meetings in the country. He wants me to 
argue with you the merits of each point of that decision before 
this political meeting. I say to you, with all due respect, that 
I choose to abide by the decisions of the Supreme Court as they 
are pronounced. It is not for me to inquire, after a decision is 
made, whether I like it in all the points or not. When I used to 
practice law with Lincoln, I never knew him to be beat in a case 
that he did not get mad at the judge, and talk about appealing ; 
and when I got beat, I generally thought the court was wrong, 
but I never dreamed of going out of the court-house and making 
a stump speech to the people against the judge, merely because 
I had found out that I did not know the law as well as he did. 
If the decision did not suit me, I appealed until I got to the 
Supreme Court ; and then if that court, the highest tribunal in 
the world, decided against me, I was satisfied, because it is the 
duty of every law-abiding man to obey the constitutions, the laws, 
and the constituted authorities. He who attempts to stir up 
odium and rebellion in the country against the constituted au- 
thorities, is stimulating the passions of men to resort to violence 
and to mobs instead of to the law. Hence, I tell you that I take 
the decisions of the Supreme Court as the law of the land, and 
I intend to obey them as such. 

But Mr. Lincoln says that I will not answer his question as 
to what I would do in the event of the court making so ridicu- 
lous a decision as he imagines they would by deciding that the 
free State of Illinois could not prohibit slaver}^ within her own 
limits. I told him at Freeport why I would not answer such a 
question. I told him that there was not a man possessing any 
brains in America, lawyer or not, who ever dreamed that such 
a thing could be done. I told him then, as I do now, that by all 
the principles set forth in the Dred Scott decision, it is impos- 
sible. I told him then, as I do now, that it is an insult to men's 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 311 

understanding, and a gross calumny on the court, to presume in 
advance that it was going to degrade itself so low as to make a 
decision known to be in direct violation of the Constitution. 

A voice : The same thing was said about the Dred Scott 
decision before it passed. 

Mr. Douglas : Perhaps you think that the court did the 
same thing in reference to the Dred Scott decision : I have 
heard a man talk that way before. The principles contained in 
the Dred Scott decision had been affirmed previously in various 
other decisions. What court or judge ever held that a negro 
was a citizen? The State courts had decided that question over 
and over again, and the Dred Scott decision on that point only 
affirmed what every court in the land knew to be the law.. 

But I will not be drawn off into an argument upon the merits 
of the Dred Scott decision. It is enough for me to know that 
the Constitution of the United States created the Supreme Court 
for the purpose of deciding all disputed questions touching the 
true construction of that instrument, and when such decisions 
are pronounced, they are the law of the land, binding on every 
good citizen. Mr. Lincoln has a very convenient mode of argu- 
ing upon the subject. He holds that because he is a Republican 
that he is not bound by the decisions of the court, but that I, 
being a Democrat, am so bound. It may be that Repub- 
licans do not hold themselves bound by the laws of the 
land and the Constitution of the country as expounded by 
the courts ; it may be an article in the Republican creed 
that men who do not like a decision have a right to rebel 
against it : but when Mr. Lincoln preaches that doctrine, I think 
he will find some honest Republican — some law-abiding man in 
that party — who will repudiate such a monstrous doctrine. The 
decision in the Dred Scott case is binding on every American 
citizen alike ; and yet Mr. Lincoln argues that the Republicans 
are not bound by it because they are opposed to it, whilst Demo- 
crats are bound by it, because we will not resist it. A Democrat 
cannot resist the constituted authorities of this country ; a Demo- 
crat is a law-abiding man ; a Democrat stands by the Constitu- 
tion and the laws, and relies upon liberty as protected by law, 
and not upon mob or political violence. 

I have never yet been able to make Mr. Lincoln understand, 
or can I make any man who is determined to support him, 
right or wrong, understand how it is that under the Dred Scott 
decision the people of a Territory, as well as a State, can have 
slavery or not, just as they please. I believe that I can explain 
that proposition to all constitution-loving, law-abiding men in a 
way that they cannot fail to understand it. Chief Justice Taney, 
in his opinion in the Dred Scott case, said that, slaves being prop- 
erty, the owner of them has a right to take them into a Territory 



312 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the same as he would any other property ; in other words, that 
slave property, so far as the right to enter a Territory is con- 
cerned, stands on the same footing with other property. Sup- 
pose we grant that proposition. Then any man has a right to go 
to Kansas and take his property with him ; but when he gets 
there, he must rely upon the local law to protect his property, 
whatever it may be. In order to illustrate this, imagine that 
three of you conclude to go to Kansas. One takes $10,000 
worth of slaves, another $10,000 worth of liquors, and the third 
$10,000 worth of dry goods. When the man who owns the 
dry goods arrives out there and commences selling them, he 
finds that he is stopped and prohibited from selling until he gets 
a license, which will destroy all the profits he can make on his 
goods to pay for. When the man with the liquors gets there and 
tries to sell, he finds a Maine liquor law in force which prevents 
him. Now, of what use is his right to go there with his prop- 
erty unless he is protected in the enjoyment of that right after he 
gets there? The man who gets there with his slaves finds that 
there is no law to protect him when he arrives there. He has 
no remedy if his slaves run away to another country ; there 
is no slave code or police regulations ; and the absence of them 
excludes his slaves from the Territory just as effectually and as 
positively as a constitutional prohibition could. 

Such was the understanding when the Kansas and Nebraska 
bill was pending in Congress. Read the speech of Speaker Orr, 
of South Carolina, in the House of Representatives, in 1856, on 
the Kansas question, and you will find that he takes the ground 
that while the owner of a slave has a right to go into a Territory 
and carry his slaves with him, that he cannot hold them one day 
or hour unless there is a slave code to protect him. He tells you 
that slavery would not exist a day in South Carolina, or any 
other State, unless there was a friendly people and friendly leg- 
islation. Read the speeches of that giant in intellect, Alexander 
H. Stephens, of Georgia, and j'^ou will find them to the same 
eflect. Read the speeches of Sam Smith, of Tennessee, and of 
all Southern men and you will find that they all understood this 
doctrine then as we understand it now. Mr. Lincoln cannot be 
made to understand it, however. Down at Jonesboro, he went 
on to argue that if it be the law that a man has a right to take 
his slaves into territory of the United States under the Consti- 
tution, that then a member of Congress was perjured if he did 
not vote for a slave code. I ask him whether the decision of 
the Supreme Court is not binding upon him as well as on me? 
If so, and he holds that he would be perjured if he did not vote 
for a slave code under it, I ask him whether, if elected to Con- 
gress, he will so vote? I have a right to his answer, and I will 
tell you why. He put that question to me down in Eg3^pt, and 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 313 

did it with an air of triumph. This was about the form of it : 
" In the event that a slave-holding citizen of one of the Terri- 
tories should need and demand a slave code to protect his slaves, 
will you vote for it?" I answered him that a fundamental article 
in the Democratic creed, as put forth in the Nebraska bill and 
the Cincinnati platform, was non-intervention by Congress with 
slavery in the States and Territories, and hence that I would not 
vote in Congress for any code of laws, either for or against 
slavery, in any Territory. I will leave the people perfectly free 
to decide that question for themselves. 

Mr. Lincoln and the Washington "Union " both think this 
a monstrous bad doctrine. Neither Mr. Lincoln nor the Wash- 
ington " Union " like my Freeport speech on that subject. The 
" Union," in a late number, has been reading me out of the 
Democratic party because I hold that the people of a Territory, 
like those of a State, have the right to have slavery or not, as they 
please. It has devoted three and a half columns to prove certain 
propositions, one of which I will read. It says : — 

"We propose to show that Judge Douglas's action in 1850 and 
1854 was taken with especial reference to the announcement of doc- 
trine and programme which was made at Freeport. The declaration 
at Freeport was, that ' in his opinion the people can, by lawful means, 
exclude slavery from a Territory before it comes in as a State ;' and 
he declared that his competitor had ' heard him argue the Nebraska 
bill on that principle all over Illinois in 1854, 1855, and 1856, and had 
no excuse to pretend to have any doubt upon that subject.' " 

The Washington " Union " there charges me with the 
monstrous crime of now proclaiming on the stump the same doc- 
trine that I carried out in 1850, by supporting Cla3^'s Compro- 
mise Measures. The "Union" also charges that I am now 
proclaiming the same doctrine that I did in 1854 in support of 
the Kansas and Nebraska bill. It is shocked that I should now 
stand where I stood in 1850, when I was supported by Clay, 
Webster, Cass, and the great men of that day, and where I 
stood in 1854 and in 1856, when Mr. Buchanan was elected 
President. It goes on to prove, and succeeds in proving, from 
my speeches in Congress on Clay's Compromise Measures, that 
I held the same doctrines at that time that I do now, and then 
proves that by the Kansas and Nebraska bill I advanced the 
same doctrine that I now advance. It remarks : — 

" So much for the course taken by Judge Douglas on the Com- 
promises of 1850. The record shows, beyond the possibility of cavil 
or dispute, that he expressly intended in those bills to give the Ter- 
ritorial Legislatures power to exclude slavery. How stands his 
record in the memorable session of 1854, with reference to the Kansas- 
Nebraska bill itself? We shall not overhaul the votes that were 

41 



314 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

given on that notable measure, our space will not afford it. We 
have his ovv^n words, however, delivered in his speech closing the 
great debate on that bill on the night of March 3, 1854, to show that 
he fneant to do in 1854 precisely what he had meant to do in 1858. 
The Kansas-Nebraska bill being upon its passage, he said :" 

It then quotes my remarks upon the passage of the bill as 
folio w^s : — 

" ' The principle which we propose to carry into effect by this 
bill is this : That Congress shall neither legislate slavery into any 
Territory or State, nor out of the same ; but the people shall be left 
free to regulate their domestic concerns in their own way, subject 
only to the Constitution of the United States. In order to carry this 
principle into practical operation, it becomes necessary to remove 
whatever legal obstacles might be found in the way of its free exer- 
cise. It is only for the purpose of carrying out this great funda- 
mental principle of self-government that the bill renders the eighth 
section of the Missouri Act inoperative and void. 

" ' Now, let me ask, will those senators who have arraigned me, 
or any one of them, have the assurance to rise in his place and declare 
that this great principle was never thought of or advocated as appli- 
cable to Territorial bills, in 1850; that, from that session until the 
present, nobody ever thought of incorporating this principle in all 
new Territorial organizations, etc., etc. I will begin with the Com- 
promises of 1850. Any senator who will take the trouble to examine 
our journals will find that on the 25th of March of that year I re- 
ported from the Committee on Territories two bills, including the 
following measures : the admission of California, a Territorial gov- 
ernment for Utah, a Territorial government for New Mexico, and the 
adjustment of the Texas boundary. These bills proposed to leave the 
people of Utah and New Mexico free to decide the slavery question 
for themselves, in the precise language of the Nebraska bill now 
under discussion. A few weeks afterward the committee of thirteen 
took those bills and put a wafer between them, and reported them 
back to the Senate as one bill, with some slight amendments. One 
of these afnendments -was, that the Territorial Legislatures shotild 
not legislate upon the subject of African slavery. I objected to this 
provision^ upon the ground that it subverted the great principle of 
self-government, upon ivhich the bill had beeft originally framed by 
the Territorial Co?ti?nittee. On the first trial the Senate refused to 
strike it out, but subsequently did so, upon full debate, in order to 
establish that principle as the rule of action in Territorial organiza- 
tions.' " 

The "Union" comments thus upon my speech on that 
occasion : — 

"Thus it is seen that, in framing the Nebraska-Kansas bill, 
Judge Douglas framed it in the terms and upon the model of those 
of Utah and New Mexico, and that in the debate he took pains ex- 
pressly to revive the recollection of the voting which had taken place 
upon amendments affecting the powers of the Territorial Legisla- 
tures over the subject of slavery in the bills of 1850, in order to give 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 315 

the same meaning, force, and effect to the Nebraska-Kansas bill on 
this subject as had been given to those of Utah and New Mexico." 

The " Union" proves the following propositions : First, that 
I sustained Clay's Compromise Measures on the ground that 
they established the principle of self-government in the Terri- 
tories. Secondly, that I brought in the Kansas and Nebraska 
bill, founded upon the same principles as Clay's Compromise 
Measures of 1850 ; and, thirdly, that my Freeport speech is in 
exact accordance with those principles. And what do you think 
is the imputation that the "Union" casts upon me for all this? 
It sa3^s that my Freeport speech is not Democratic, and that I 
was not a Democrat in 1854 or in 1850 ! Now is not that 
funny ? Think that the author of the Kansas and Nebraska bill 
was not a Democrat when he introduced it ! The " Union " 
says I was not a sound Democrat in 1850, nor in 1854, nor in 
1856, nor am I in 1858, because I have always taken and now 
occupy the ground that the people of a Territory, like those of a 
State, have the right to decide for themselves whether slavery 
shall or shall not exist in a Territory ! I wish to cite, for the 
benefit of the Washington " Union " and the followers of that 
sheet, one authority on that point, and I hope the authority will 
be deemed satisfactory to that class of politicians. I will read 
from Mr. Buchanan's letter accepting the nomination of the 
Democratic Convention, for the Presidency. You know that 
Mr. Buchanan, after he was nominated, declared to the Keystone 
Club, in a public speech, that he was no longer James Buchanan, 
but the embodiment of the Democratic platform. In his letter 
to the committee which informed him of his nomination accept- 
ing it, he defined the meaning of the Kansas and Nebraska bill 
and the Cincinnati platform in these words : 

" The recent legislation of Congress respecting domestic slavery, 
derived as it has been from the original and pure fountain of legiti- 
mate political power, the will of the majority, promises ere long to 
allay the dangerous excitement. This legislation is founded upon 
principles as ancient as free government itself, and, in accordance 
with them, has simply declared that the people of a Territory, like 
those of a State, shall decide for themselves whether slavery shall 
or shall not exist within their limits." 

Thus you see that James Buchanan accepted the nomination 
at Cincinnati, on the conditions that the people of a Territory, 
like those of a State, should be left to decide for themselves 
whether slavery should or should not exist within their limits. 
I sustained James Buchanan for the Presidency on that plat- 
form as adopted at Cincinnati, and expounded by himself. He 
was elected President on that platform, and now we are told 
by the Washington "Union" that no man is a true Demo- 



316 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

crat who stands on the platform on which Mr. Buchanan was 
nominated, and which he has explained and expounded himself. 
We are told that a man is not a Democrat who stands by Clay, 
Webster, and Case, and the Compromise Measures of 1850, and 
the Kansas and Nebraska bill of 1854. Whether a man be a 
Democrat or not on that platform, I intend to stand there as long 
as I have life. I intend to cling firmly to that principle which 
declares the right of each State and each Territory to settle the 
question of slavery, and every other domestic question, for them- 
selves. I hold that if they want a Slave State, the}^ have a right 
under the Constitution of the United States to make it so, and 
if they want a Free State, it is their right to have it. But the 
"Union," in advocating the claims of Lincoln over me to the 
Senate, lays down two unpardonable heresies which it says I 
advocate. The first is the right of the people of a Territory, 
the same as a State, to decide for themselves the question 
whether slavery shall exist within their limits, in the language 
of Mr. Buchanan ; and the second is, that a Constitution shall be 
submitted to the people of a Territory for its adoption or rejec- 
tion before their admission as a State under it. It so happens 
that Mr. Buchanan is pledged to both these heresies, for sup- 
porting which the Washington " Union " has read me out of the 
Democratic church. In his annual message he said he trusted 
that the example of the Minnesota case would be followed in all 
future cases, requiring a submission of the Constitution : and in 
his letter of acceptance, he said that the people of a Territory, 
the same as a State, had the right to decide for themselves 
whether slavery should exist within their limits. Thus you find 
that this little corrupt gang who control the " Union " and wish 
to elect Lincoln in preference to me, — because, as they say, 
of these two heresies which I support, — denounce President 
Buchanan when they denounce me, if he stands now by the 
principles on which he was elected. Will they pretend that 
he does not now stand b}^ the principles on which he was elected? 
Do they hold that he has abandoned the Kansas-Nebraska bill, 
the Cincinnati platform, and his own letter accepting his nomi- 
nation, all of which declare the right of the people of a Territory, 
the same as a State, to decide the slavery question for them- 
selves? I will not believe that he has betrayed or intends to 
betray the platform which elected him ; but if he does, I will not 
follow him. I will stand by that great principle, no matter who 
may desert it. I intend to stand by it, for the purpose of pre- 
serving peace between the North and the South, the Free and 
the Slave States. If each State will only agree to mind its own 
business and let its neighbors alone, there will be peace forever 
between us. 

We in Illinois tried slavery when a Territory, and found it 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 317 

was not good for us in this climate, and with our surroundings, 
and hence we abolished it. We then adopted a free State con- 
stitution, as we had a right to do. In this State we have 
declared that a negro shall not be a citizen, and we have also 
declared that he shall not be a slave. We had a right to adopt 
that policy. Missouri has just as good a right to adopt the other 
policy. I am now speaking of rights under the Constitution, 
and not of moral or religious rights. I do not discuss 
the morals of the people of Missouri, but let them settle 
that matter for themselves. I hold that the people of the 
slaveholding States are civilized men as well as ourselves, 
that they bear consciences as well as we, and that they 
are accountable to God and their posterity, and not to us. 
It is not for them to decide, therefore, the moral and religious 
right of the slavery question for themselves, within their own 
limits. I assert that they had as much right under the Constitu- 
tion to adopt the system of policy which they have as we had to 
adopt ours. So it is with every other State in this Union. Let 
each State stand firmly by that great constitutional right, let each 
State mind its own business and let its neighbors alone, and there 
will be no trouble on this question. If we will stand by that 
principle, then Mr. Lincoln will find that this Republic can exist 
forever, divided into Free and Slave States, as our fathers made 
it and the people of each State have decided. Stand by that 
great principle, and we can go on as we have done, increasing 
in wealth, in population, in power, and in all the elements of 
greatness, until we shall be the admiration and terror of the 
world. We can go on and enlarge as our population increase, 
require more room, until me make this continent one ocean-bound 
republic. Under that principle the United States can perform 
that great mission, that destiny, which Providence has marked 
out for us. Under that principle we can receive with entire 
safety that stream of intelligence which is constantly flowing 
from the Old World to the New, filling up our prairies, clearing 
our wildernesses, and building cities, towns, railroads, and other 
internal improvements, and thus make this the asylum of the 
oppressed of the whole earth. We have this great mission to 
perform, and it can only be performed by adhering faithfully to 
that principle of self-government on which our institutions were 
all established. I repeat that the principle is the right of each 
State, each Territory, to decide this slavery question for itself, to 
have slavery or not, as it chooses ; and it does not become Mr. 
Lincoln, or anybody else, to tell the people of Kentucky that they 
have no consciences, that they are living in a state of iniquity, 
and that they are cherishing an institution to their bosoms in 
violation of the law of God. Better for him to adopt the doctrine 
of "Judge not, lest ye shall be judged." Let him perform his 



318 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

own duty at home, and he will have a better fate in the future. I 
think there are objects of charity enough in the Free States to 
excite the sympathies and open the pockets of all the benevolence 
we have amongst us, without going abroad in search of negroes, 
of whose condition we know nothing. We have enough objects 
of charity at home, and it is our duty to take care of our own 
poor and our own suffering, before we go abroad to intermeddle 
with other people's business. 

My friends, I am told that my time is within two minutes of 
expiring. I have omitted many topics that I would like to have 
discussed before you at length. There were many points touched 
by Mr. Lincoln that I have not been able to take up for the want 
of time. I have hurried over each subject that I have discussed 
as rapidly as possible, so as to omit but few ; but one hour and a 
half is not time sufficient for a man to discuss at length one-half 
of the great questions which are now dividing the public mind. 

In conclusion, I desire to return to you my grateful acknowl- 
edgements for the kindness and the courtesy with which you 
have listened to me. It is something remarkable that in an 
audience as vast as this, composed of men of opposite politics 
and views, with their passions highly excited, there should be so 
much courtesy, kindness, and respect exhibited, not only toward 
one another, but toward the speakers ; and I feel that it is due to 
you that I should thus express my gratitude for the kindness with 
which you have treated me. 



MR. LINCOLN'S REJOINDER. 

My Friends : Since Judge Douglas has said to you in his 
conclusion that he had not time in an hour and a half to answer 
all I had said in an hour, it follows of course that I will not be 
able to answer in half an hour all that he said in an hour and a 
half. 

I wish to return to Judge Douglas my profound thanks for 
his public annunciation here to-day, to be put on record, that his 
system of policy in regard to the institution of slavery contemplates 
that it shall last forever . We are getting a little nearer the true 
issue of this controversy, and I am profoundly grateful for this 
one sentence. Judge Douglas asks you, "Why cannot the 
institution of slavery, or rather, why cannot the nation, part slave 
and part free, continue as our fathers made it, foreverf'' In the 
first place, I insist that our fathers did not make this nation half 
slave and half free, or part slave and part free. I insist that they 
found the institution of slavery existing here. They did not make 
it so, but they left it so because they knew of no way to get rid 
of it at that time. When Judge Douglas undertakes to say that, 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 319 

as a matter of choice, the fathers of the government made this 
nation part slave and part free, he assumes what is historically a 
falsehood. More than that : when the fathers of the government 
cut off the source of slavery by the abolition of the slave-trade, 
and adopted a system of restricting it from the new Territories 
where it had not existed, I maintain that they placed it where 
they understood, and all sensible men understood, it was in the 
course of ultimate extinction ; and when Judge Douglas asks me 
why it cannot continue as our fathers made it, I ask him why he 
and his friends could not let it remain as our fathers made it? 

It is precisely all I ask of him in relation to the institution 
of slavery, that it shall be placed upon the basis that our fathers 
placed it upon. Mr. Brooks, of South Carolina, once said, and 
truly said, that when this government was established, no one 
expected the institution of slavery to last until this day, and that 
the men who formed this government were wiser and better than 
the men of these days ; but the men of these days had experience 
which the fathers had not, and that experience had taught them 
the invention of the cotton-gin, and this had made the perpetu- 
ation of the institution of slavery a necessity in this country. 
Judge Douglas could not let it stand upon the basis which our 
fathers placed it, but removed it, and -put it u-pon the cotton-gin 
basis. It is a question, therefore, for him and his friends to 
answer, why they could not let it remain where the fathers of 
the government originally placed it, 

I hope nobody has understood me as trying to sustain the 
doctrine that we have a right to quarrel with Kentucky, or 
Virginia, or any of the Slave States, about the institution of 
slavery, — thus giving the Judge an opportunity to be eloquent 
and valiant against us in fighting for their rights. I expressly 
declared in my opening speech that I had neither the inclination 
to exercise, nor the belief in the existence of, the right to 
interfere with the States of Kentucky or Virginia in doing as 
they pleased with slavery or any other existing institution. Then 
what becomes of all his eloquence in behalf of the rights of 
States, which are assailed by no living man? 

But I have to hurry on, for I have but a half hour. The 
Judge has informed me, or informed this audience, that the 
Washington " Union " is laboring for my election to the United 
States Senate. This is news to me, — not very ungrateful news 
either. [Turning to Mr. W. H. Carlin, who was on the stand] — 
I hope that Carlin will be elected to the State Senate, and will 
vote for me. [Mr. Carlin shook his head.] Carlin don't fall 
in, I perceive, and I suppose he will not do much for me ; but I 
am glad of all the support I can get, anywhere, if I can get it 
without practicing any deception lo obtain it. In respect to this 
large portion of Judge Douglas's speech in which he tries to 



320 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

show that in the controversy between himself and the Adminis- 
tration party he is in the right, I do not feel myself at all 
competent or inclined to answer him. I say to him, "Give it to 
them, — give it to them just all you can ;" and, on the other hand, 
I say to Carlin, and Jake Davis, and to this man Wogley up here 
in Hancock, " Give it to Douglas, — just pour it into him." 

Now, in regard to this matter of the Dred Scott decision, I 
wish to say a word or two. After all, the Judge will not say 
whether, if a decision is made holding that the people of the 
States cannot exclude slavery, he will support it or not. He 
obstinately refuses to say what he will do in that case. The 
Judges of the Supreme Court as obstinately refused to say what 
they would do on this subject. Before this I reminded him that 
at Galesburgh he said the judges had expressly declared the 
contrary, and you remember that in my opening speech I told 
him I had the book containing that decision here, and I would 
thank him to lay his finger on the place where any such thing 
was said. He has occupied his hour and a half, and he has not 
ventured to try to sustain his assertion. He never zvill. But he 
is desirous of knowing how we are going to reverse that Dred 
Scott decision. Judge Douglas ought to know how. Did not 
he and his political friends find a way to reverse the decision of 
that same court in favor of the constitutionality of the National 
Bank? Didn't they find a way to do it so effectually that they 
have reversed it as completely as any decision ever was reversed, 
so far as its practical operation is concerned? And let me ask 
you, didn't Judge Douglas find a way to reverse the decision of 
our Supreme Court when it decided that Carlin's father — old 
Governor Carlin — had not the constitutional power to remove a 
Secretary of State? Did he not appeal to the "mobs," as he 
calls them? Did he not make speeches in the lobby to show 
how villainous that decision was, and how it ought to be over- 
thrown? Did he not succeed, too, in getting an Act passed by 
the Legislature to have it overthrown? And didn't he himself 
sit down on that bench as one of the five added judges, who 
were to overslaugh the four old ones, — getting his name of 
"Judge" in that way, and no other? If there is a villainy in 
using disrespect or making opposition to Supreme Court 
decisions, I commend it to Judge Doviglas's earnest consideration. 
I know of no man in the State of Illinois who ought to know so 
well about kotu mnch villainy it takes to oppose a decision of the 
Supreme Court as our honorable friend Stephen A. Douglas. 

Judge Douglas also makes the declaration that I say the 
Democrats are bound by the Dred Scott decision, while the 
Republicans are not. In the sense in which he argues, I never 
said it ; but I will tell you what I have said and what I do not 

hesitate to repeat to-dav. I have said that as the Democrats. 

i 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 321 

believe that decision to be correct, and that the extension of 
slavery is affirmed in the National Constitution, they are bound 
to support it as such ; and I will tell you here that General 
Jackson once said each man was bound to support the Constitu- 
tion " as he understood it." Now, Judge Douglas understands 
the Constitution according to the Dred Scott decision, and he is 
bound to support it as he understands it. I understand it 
another way, and therefore I am bound to support it in the way 
in which I understand it. And as Judge Douglas believes that 
decision to be correct, I will remake that argument if I have 
time to do so. Let me talk to some gentleman down there 
among you who looks me in the face. We will say j^^ou are a 
member of the Territorial Legislature, and, like Judge Douglas, 
you believe that the right to take and hold slaves there is a 
constitutional right. The first thing you do is to swear yon -will 
su-pfort the Constitution and all rights guaranteed therein ; that 
you will, whenever 3'^our neighbor needs your legislation to 
support his constitutional rights, not withhold that legislation. 
If you withhold that necessary legislation for the support of the 
Constitution and constitutional rights, do you not commit perjury? 
I ask every sensible man if that is not so? That is undoubtedly 
just so, say what you please. Now, that is precisely what Judge 
Douglas says, that this is a constitutional right. Does the Judge 
mean to say that the Territorial Legislature in legislating may, 
by withholding necessary laws, or by passing unfriendly laws, 
nullify that constitutional right? Does he mean to say that? 
Does he mean to ignore the proposition so long and well estab- 
lished in law, that what you cannot do directly, you cannot do 
indirectly? Does he mean that? The truth about the matter is 
this : Judge Douglas has sung paeans to his " Popular Sover- 
eignty " doctrine until his Supreme Court, co-operating with him, 
has squatted his Squatter Sovereignty out. But he will keep up 
this species of humbuggery about Squatter Sovereignty. He has 
at last invented this sort of do-nothing Sovereignty, — that the 
people may exclude slavery by a sort of " Sovereignty " that is 
exercised by doing nothing at all. Is not that running his 
Popular Sovereignty down awfully? Has it not got down as 
thin as the homoeopathic soup that was made by boiling the 
shadow of a pigeon that had starved to death? But at last, 
when it is brought to the test of close reasoning, there is not 
even that thin decoction of it left. It is a presumption impossible 
in the domain of thought. It is precisely no other than the 
putting of that most unphilosophical proposition, that two bodies 
can occupy the same space at the same time. The Dred Scott 
decision covers the whole ground, and while it occupies it, there 
is no room even for the shadow of a starved pigeon to occupy 
the same ground. 

42 



322 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Judge Douglas, in reply to what I have said about having 
upon a previous occasion made the speech at Ottawa as the one 
he took an extract from, at Charleston, says it only shows that I 
practiced the deception twice. Now, my friends, are any of you 
obtuse enough to swallow that? Judge Douglas had said I had 
made a speech at Charleston that I would not make up north, 
and I turned around and answered him by showing I had made 
that same speech up north, — had made it at Ottawa ; made it in 
his hearing ; made it in the Abolition District, — in Lovejoy's 
District, — in the personal presence of Lovejoy himself, — in the 
same atmosphere exactly in which I had made vay Chicago 
speech, of which he complains so much. 

Now, in relation to my not having said anything about the 
quotation from the Chicago speech : he thinks that is a terrible 
subject for me to handle. Why, gentlemen, I can show you that 
the substance of the Chicago speech I delivered two years ago in 
" -^SyP^'" ^^ ^^ calls it. It was down at Springfield. That 
speech is here in this book, and I could turn to it and read it to 
you but for the lack of time. I have not now the time to read 
it. [" Read it, read it."] No, gentlemen, I am obliged to use 
discretion in disposing most advantageously of my brief time. 
The Judge has taken great exception to my adopting the 
heretical statement in the Declaration of Independence, that 
"all men are created equal," and he has a great deal to say 
about negro equality. I want to say that in sometimes alluding 
to the Declaration of Independence, I have only uttered the 
sentiments that Henry Clay used to hold. Allow me to occupy 
your time a moment with what he said. Mr. Clay was at one 
time called upon in Indiana, and in a way that I suppose was 
very insulting, to liberate his slaves ; and he made a written reply 
to that application, and one portion of it is in these words : — 

"What is \h^ foimdation of this appeal to me in Indiana to 
liberate the slaves under my care in Kentucky? It is a general 
declaration in the act announcing to the world the independence of 
the thirteen American colonies, that ' 7ne7i are created equal. '' Now, 
as an abstract principle, there is no doubt of the truth of that declara- 
tion^ and it is desirable in the original construction of society, and in 
organized societies, to keep it in view as a great fundamental prin- 
ciple." 

When I sometimes, in relation to the organization of new 
societies in new countries, where the soil is clean and clear, 
insisted that we should keep that principle in view, Judge 
Douglas will have it that I want a negro wife. He never can be 
brought to understand that there is any middle ground on this 
subject. I have lived until my fiftieth year, and have never 
had a negro woman either for a slave or a wife, and I think I 
can live fifty centuries, for that matter, without having had one 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 323 

for either. I maintain that you may take Judge Douglas's quota- 
tions from my Chicago speech, and from my Charleston speech, 
and the Galesburgh speech, — in his speech of to-day, — and com- 
pare them over, and I am willing to trust them with you upon 
his proposition that they show rascality or double-dealing. I 
deny that they do. 

The Judge does not seem at all disposed to have peace, but 
I find he is disposed to have a personal warfare with me. He 
says that my oath would not be taken against the bare word of 
Charles H. Lanphier or Thomas L. Harris. Well, that is alto- 
gether a matter of opinion. It is certainly not for me to vaunt 
my word against oaths of these gentlemen, but I will tell Judge 
Douglas again the facts upon which I ^'^ dared'''' to say they 
proved a forgery. I pointed out at Galesburgh that the publica- 
tion of these resolutions in the Illinois ** State Register" could 
not have been the result of accident, as the proceedings of that 
meeting bore unmistakable evidence of being done by a man 
who knew it was a forgery ; that it was a publication partly 
taken from the real proceedings of the Convention, and partly 
from the proceedings of a Convention at another place, — which 
showed that he had the real proceedings before him, and 
taking one part of the resolutions, he threw out another part, 
and substituted false and fraudulent ones in their stead. I 
pointed that out to him, and also that his friend Lanphier, 
who was editor of the " Register " at that time and now is, must 
have known how it was done. Now, whether he did it, or got 
some friend to do it for him, I could not tell, but he certainly 
knew all about it. I pointed out to Judge Douglas that in 
his Freeport speech he had promised to investigate that 
matter. Does he now say he did not make that promise? I 
have a right to ask why he did not kee-p it? I call upon him to 
tell here to-day why he did not keep that promise?' That fraud 
has been traced up so that it lies between him, Harris, and Lan- 
phier. There is little room for escape for Lanphier. Lanphier 
is doing the Judge good service, and Douglas desires his word 
to be taken for the truth. He desires Lanphier to be taken as au- 
thority in what he states in his newspaper. He desires Harris 
to be taken as a man of vast credibility ; and when this thing 
lies among them, they will not press it to show where the guilt 
really belongs. Now, as he has said that he would investigate 
it, and implied that he would tell us the result of his investiga- 
tion, I demand of him to tell why he did not investigate it, if he 
did not ; and if he did, why he won't tell the result. I call upon 
him for that. 

This is the third time that Judge Douglas has assumed that 
he learned about these resolutions by Harris's attempting to use 
them against Norton on the floor of Congress. I tell Judge 



324 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Douglas the public records of the country show that he himself 
attempted it upon Trumbull a month before Harris tried them 
on Norton ; that Harris had the opportunity of learning it from 
him, rather than he from Harris. I now ask his attention to that 
part of the record on the case. My friends, I am not disposed 
to detain you longer in regard to that matter. 

I am told that I still have five minutes left. There is an- 
other matter I wish to call attention to. He says, when he dis- 
covered there was a mistake in that case, he came forward 
magnanimously, without my calling his attention to it, and ex- 
plained it. I will tell you how he became so magnanimous. 
When the newspapers of our side had discovered and published 
it, and put it beyond his power to deny it, then he came forward 
and made a virtue of necessity by acknowledging it. Now he 
argues that all the point there was in those resolutions, although 
never passed at Springfield, is retained by their being passed at 
other localities. Is that true? He said I had a hand in passing 
them, in his opening speech, — that I was in the Convention and 
helped to pass them. Do the resolutions touch me at all? It 
strikes me there is some difference between holding a man re- 
sponsible for an act which he has not done, and holding him 
responsible for an act that he has done. You will judge 
whether there is any difference in the ^^ spots,"" And he has 
taken credit for great magnanimity in coming forward and 
acknowledging what is proved on him beyond even the capacity 
of Judge Douglas to deny ; and he has more capacity in that way 
than any other living man. 

Then he wants to know why I won't withdraw the charge in 
regard to a conspiracy to make slavery national, as he has with- 
drawn the one he made. May it please his worship, I will with- 
draw it when it is proven false on me as that was proven false on 
him. ^1 will add a little more than that. I will withdraw it 
whenever a reasonable man shall be brought to believe that the 
charge is not true. I have asked Judge Douglas's attention to 
certain matters of fact tending to prove the charge of a con- 
spiracy to nationalize slavery, and he says he convinces me that 
this is all untrue because Buchanan was not in the country at 
that time, and because the Dred Scott case had not then got into 
the Supreme Court ; and he says that I say the Democratic 
owners of Dred Scott got up the case, I never did say that. V 
defy Judge Douglas to show that I ever said so, for I never 
uttered it. [One of Mr. Douglas's reporters gesticulated aftirma- 
tivel}' at Mr. Lincoln.] I don't care if your hireling does say I 
did, I tell you myself that I never said the '"'- Democratic'''' owners 
of Dred Scott got up the case. I have never pretended to know 
whether Dred Scott's owners were Democrats, or Abolitionists, 
or Free-soilers or Border Ruffians. I have said that there 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 325 

is evidence about the case tending to show that it was a made up 
case, for the purpose of getting that decision. I have said that 
that evidence was very strong in the fact that when Dred Scott 
was declared to be a slave, the owner of him made him free, 
showing that he had had the case tried and the question settled 
for such use as could be made of that decision ; he cared nothing 
about the property thus declared to be his by that decision. But 
my time is out, and I can say no more. 



THE LAST JOINT DEBATE, AT ALTON, 

October 15, 1858. 
SENATOR DOUGLAS'S SPEECH. 

Ladies and Gentlemen : It is now nearly four months 
since the canvass between Mr. Lincoln and myself commenced. 
On the 16th of June the Republican Convention assembled at 
Springfield and nominated Mr. Lincoln as their candidate for 
the United States Senate, and he, on that occasion, delivered a 
speech in which he laid down what he understood to be the 
Republican creed, and the platform on which he proposed to 
stand during the contest. The principal points in that speech ot 
Mr. Lincoln's were: First, that this government could not 
endure permanently divided into Free and Slave States, as our 
fathers made it ; that they must all become free or all become 
slave ; all become one thing, or all become the other, — otherwise 
this Union could not continue to exist. I give you his opinions 
almost in the identical language he used. His second proposition 
was a crusade against the Supreme Court of the United States 
because of the Dred Scott decision, urging as an especial reason 
for his opposition to that decision that it deprived the negroes of 
the rights and benefits of that clause in the Constitution of the 
United States which guarantees to the citizens of each State all 
the rights, privileges, and immunities of the citizens of the several 
States. On the 10th of July I returned home, and delivered a 
speech to the people of Chicago, in which I announced it to be 
my purpose to appeal to the people of Illinois to sustain the course 
I had pursued in Congress. In that speech I joined issue with 
Mr. Lincoln on the points which he had presented. Thus there 
was an issue clear and distinct made up between us on these two 
propositions laid down in the speech of Mr. Lincoln at Springfield, 
and controverted by me in my reply to him at Chicago. On the next 
day, the 11th of July, Mr. Lincoln replied to me at Chicago, explain- 
ing at some length and reaffirming the positions which he had taken 



326 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

in his Springfield speech. In that Chicago speech he even went 
further than he had before, and uttered sentiments in regard to 
the negro being on an equality with the while man. He adopted 
in support of this position the argument which Lovejoy and 
Codding and other Abolition lecturers had made familiar in the 
northern and central portions of the State ; to wit, that the 
Declaration of Independence having declared all men free and 
equal, by divine law, also that negro equality was an inalienable 
right, of which they could not be deprived. He insisted, in 
that speech, that the Declaration of Independence included the 
negro in the clause asserting that all men were created equal, 
and went so far as to say that if one man was allowed to take 
the position that it did not include the negro, others might take 
the position that it did not include other men. He said that all 
these distinctions between this man and that man, this race and 
the other race, must be discarded, and we must all stand by the 
Declaration of Independence, declaring that all men were created 
equal. 

The issue thus being made up between Mr. Lincoln and 
myself on three points, we went before the people of the State. 
During the following seven weeks, between the Chicago speeches 
and our first meeting at Ottawa, he and I addressed large 
assemblages of the people in many of the central counties. In 
my speeches I confined myself closely to those three positions 
which he had taken, controverting his proposition that this Union 
could not exist as our fathers made it, divided into Free and Slave 
States, controverting his proposition of a crusade against the 
Supreme Court because of the Dred Scott decision, and contro- 
verting his proposition that the Declaration of Independence 
included and meant the negroes as well as the white men, when 
it declared all men to be created equal. I supposed at that time 
that these propositions constituted a distinct issue between us, 
and that the opposite positions we had taken upon them we would 
be willing to be held to in every part of the State. I never 
intended to waver one hair's breadth from that issue either in the 
north or the south, or wherever I should address the people of 
Illinois. I hold that when the time arrives that I cannot proclaim 
my political creed in the same terms, not only in the northern, 
but the southern part of Illinois, not only in the Northern, but 
the Southern States, and wherever the American flag waves over 
American soil, that then there must be something wrong in that 
creed; so long as we live under a common Constitution, so 
long as we live in a confederacy of sovereign and equal States, 
joined together as one for certain purposes, that any political 
creed is radically wrong which cannot be proclaimed in 
every State and every section of that Union, alike. I took 
up Mr. Lincoln's three propositions in my several speeches, 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 327 

analyzed them, and pointed out what I believed to be the radical 
errors contained in them. First, in regard to his doctrine that 
this government was in violation of the law of God, which says 
that a house divided against itself cannot stand, I repudiated it as 
a slander upon the immortal framers of our Constitution. I then 
said, I have often repeated, and now again assert, that in my 
opinion our government can endure forever, divided into Free 
and Slave States as our fathers made it, — each State having the 
right to prohibit, abolish, or sustain slavery, just as it pleases. 
This government was made upon the great basis of the sover- 
eignty of the States, the right of each State to regulate its own 
domestic institutions to suit itself; and that right was conferred 
with the understanding and expectation that inasmuch as each 
locality had separate interests, each locality must have different 
and distinct local and domestic institutions, corresponding to its 
wants and interests. Our fathers knew when they made the 
government that the laws and institutions which were well adapted 
to the Green Mountains of Vermont were unsuited to the rice 
plantations of South Carolina. They knew then, as well as we 
know now, that the laws and institutions which would be well 
adapted to the beautiful prairies of Illinois would not be suited to 
the mining regions of California. They knew that in a Republic 
as broad as this, having such a variety of soil, climate, and 
interest, there must necessarily be a corresponding variety of 
local laws, — the policy and institutions of each State adapted to 
its condition and wants. For this reason this Union was 
established on the right of each State to do as it pleased on the 
question of slavery, and every other question ; and the various 
States were not allowed to complain of, much less interfere with, 
the policy of their neighbors. 

Suppose the doctrine advocated by Mr. Lincoln and the 
Abolitionists of this day had prevailed when the Constitution 
was made, what would have been the result? Imagine for a 
moment that Mr. Lincoln had been a member of the Convention 
that framed the Constitution of the United States, and that when 
its members were about to sign that wonderful document, he had 
arisen in that Convention as he did at Springfield this summer, 
and, addressing himself to the President, had said, "A house 
divided against itself cannot stand ; this government, divided into 
Free and Slave States cannot endure, they must all be free or 
all be slave ; they must all be one thing, or all the other, — other- 
wise, it is a violation of the law of God, and cannot continue to 
exist ;" — suppose Mr. Lincoln had convinced that body of sages 
that that doctrine was sound, what would have been the result? 
Remember that the Union was then composed of thirteen States, 
twelve of which were slaveholding, and one free. Do you think 
that the one Free State would have outvoted the twelve slave- 



328 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

holding States, and thus have secured the abolition of slavery? 
On the other hand, would not the twelve slaveholding States 
have outvoted the one free State, and thus have fastened slavery, 
by a constitutional provision, on every foot of the American 
Republic forever? You see that if this Abolition doctrine of 
Mr. Lincoln had prevailed when the government was made, it 
would have established slavery as a permanent institution in all 
the States, whether they wanted it or not ; and the question for 
us to determine in Illinois now, as one of the Free States, is 
whether or not we are willing, having become the majority 
section, to enforce a doctrine on the minority which we would 
have resisted with our heart's blood had it been attempted on us 
when we were in a minority. How has the South lost her power 
as the majority section in this Union, and how have the Free 
States gained it, except under the operation of that principle 
which declares the right of the people of each State and each 
Territor}'- to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their 
own way? It was under that principle that slavery was abolished 
in New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New 
Jersey, and Pennsylvania ; it was under that principle that one 
half of the slaveholding States became free : it was under that 
principle that the number of Free States increased until, from 
being one out of twelve States, we have grown to be the majority 
of States of the whole Union, with the power to control the 
House of Representatives and Senate, and the power, conse- 
quently, to elect a President by Northern votes, without the aid 
of a Southern State. Having obtained this power under the 
operation of that great principle, are you now prepared to 
abandon the principle and declare that merely because we have 
the power you will wage a war against the Southern States and 
their institutions until you force them to abolish slavery every- 
where. 

After having pressed these arguments home on Mr. Lincoln 
for seven weeks, publishing a number of my speeches, we met at 
Ottawa in joint discussion, and he then began to crawfish a little, 
and let himself down. I there propounded certain questions to 
him. Amongst others, I asked him whether he would vote for 
the admission of any more Slave States, in the event the people 
wanted them. He would not answer. I then told him that if he 
did not answer the question there, I would renew it at Freeport, 
and would then trot him down into Egypt, and again put it to him^ 
Well, at Freeport, knowing that the next joint discussion took 
place in Egypt, and being in dread of it, he did answer my 
question in regard to no more Slave States in a mode which he 
hoped would be satisfactory to me, and accomplish the object he 
had in view. I will show you what his answer was. After 
sa3^ing that he was not pledged to the Republican doctrine of 
*' no more Slnve States." he declared : — 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 329 

" I state to you freely, frankly, that I should be exceedingly 
sorry to ever be put in the position of having to pass upon that ques- 
tion. I should be exceedingly glad to know that there never would 
be another Slave State admitted into this Union." 

Here permit me to remark, that I do not think the people 
will ever force him into a position against his will. He went on 
to say : — 

" But I must add, in regard to this, that if slavery shall be kept 
out of the Territory during the Territorial existence of any one given 
Territory, and then the people should, having a fair chance and a 
clear field, when they come to adopt a constitution, if they should do 
the extraordinary thing of adopting a slave constitution uninfluenced 
by the actual presence of the institution among them, I see no alterna- 
tive, if we own the country, but we must admit it into the Union." 

That answer Mr. Lincoln supposed would satisfy the old 
line Whigs, composed of Kentuckians and Virginians, down in 
the southern part of the State. Now, what does it amount to? 
I desired to know whether he would vote to allow Kansas to 
come into the Union with slavery or not, as her people desired. 
He would not answer, but in a roundabout way said that if 
slavery should be kept out of a Territory during the whole of its 
Territorial existence, and then the people, when they adopted a 
State Constitution, asked admission as a Slave State, he supposed 
he would have to let the State come in. The case I put to him 
was an entirely different one. I desired to know whether he 
would vote to admit a State if Congress had not prohibited 
slavery in it during its Territorial existence, as Congress never 
pretended to do under Clay's Compromise measures of 1850. 
He would not answer, and I have not yet been able to get an 
answer from him. I have asked him whether he would vote to 
admit Nebraska if her people asked to come in as a State with a 
constitution recognizing slavery, and he refused to answer. I 
have put the question to him with reference to New Mexico, and 
he has not uttered a word in answer. I have enumerated the 
Territories, one after another, putting the same question to him 
with reference to each, and he has not said, and will not say, 
whether, if elected to Congress, he will vote to admit any Terri- 
tory now in existence with such a constitution as her people may- 
adopt. He invents a case which does not exist, and cannot 
exist under this government, and answers it ; but he will not 
answer the question I put to him in connection with any of the 
Territories now in existence. The contract we entered into 
with Texas when she entered the Union obliges us to allow four 
States to be formed out of the old State, and admitted with or 
without slavery, as the respective inhabitants of each may 
determine. I have asked Mr. Lincoln three times in our joint 

43 



330 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

discussions whether he would vote to redeem that pledge, and he 
has never yet answered. He is as silent as the grave on the 
subject. He would rather answer as to a state of the case which 
will never arise than commit himself by telling what he would 
do in a case which would come up for his action soon after his 
election to Congress. Why can he not say whether he is willing 
to allow the people of each State to have slavery or not as they 
please, and to come into the Union, when they have the requisite 
population, as a Slave or a Free State as they decide? I have 
no trouble in answering the question. I have said everywhere, 
and now repeat it to you, that if the people of Kansas want a 
Slave State they have a right, under the Constitution of the 
United States, to form such a State, and I will let them come 
into the Union with slavery or without, as they determine. If 
the people of any other Territory desire slavery, let them have 
it. If they do not want it, let them prohibit it. It is their busi- 
ness, not mine. It is none of our business in Illinois whether 
Kansas is a Free State or a Slave State. It is none of your 
business in Missouri whether Kansas shall adopt slavery or reject 
it. It is the business of her people, and none of yours. The 
people of Kansas have as much right to decide that question for 
themselves as you have in Missouri to decide it for yourselves, 
or we in Illinois to decide it for ourselves. 

And here I may repeat what I have said in every speech I 
have made in Illinois, that I fought the Lecompton Constitution 
to its death, not because of the slavery clause in it, but because 
it was not the act and deed of the people of Kansas. I said 
then in Congress, and I say now, that if the people of Kansas 
want a Slave State, they have a right to have it. If they wanted 
the Lecompton Constitution, they had a right to have it. I was 
opposed to that constitution because I did not believe that it was 
the act and deed of the people, but, on the contrary, the act of a 
small, pitiful minority acting in the name of the majority. When 
at last it was determined to send that constitution back to the 
people, and, accordingly, in August last, the question of admission 
under it was submitted to a popular vote, the citizens rejected it 
by nearly ten to one, thus showing conclusively that I was right 
when I said that the Lecompton Constitution was not the act 
and deed of the people of Kansas, and did not embody their 
will. 

I hold that there is no power on earth, under our system of 
government, which has the right to force a constitution upon an 
unwilling people. Suppose that there had been a majority of 
ten to one in favor of slavery in Kansas, and suppose there had 
been an Abolition President and an Abolition Administration, 
and by some means the Abolitionists succeeded in forcing an 
Abolition Constitution upon those slaveholding people, would the 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 331 

people of the South have submitted to that act for an instant? 
Well, if you of the South would not have submitted to it a da}', 
how can you, as fair, honorable, and honest men, insist on 
putting a slave constitution on a people who desire a Free State? 
Your safety and ours depend upon both of us acting in good 
faith, and living up to that great principle which asserts the right 
of every people to form and regulate their domestic institutions 
to suit themselves, subject only to the Constitution of the United 
States. 

Most of the men who denounced my course on the Lecomp- 
ton question objected to it, not because I was not right, but 
because they thought it expedient at that time, for the sake of 
keeping the party together, to do wrong. I never knew the 
Democratic party to violate any one of its principles, out of 
policy or expediency, that it did not pay the debt with sorrow. 
There is no safety or success for our party unless we always do 
right, and trust the consequences to God and the people. I 
chose not to depart from principle for the sake of expediency 
on the Lecompton question, and I never intend to do it on that 
or any other question. 

But I am told that I would have been all right if I had only 
voted for the English bill after Lecompton was killed. You 
know a general pardon was granted to all political offenders on 
the Lecompton question, provided they would only vote for the 
English bill. I did not accept the benefits of that pardon, for 
the reason that I had been right in the course I had pursued, and 
hence did not require any forgiveness. Let us see how the 
result has been worked out. English brought in his bill referring 
the Lecompton Constitution back to the people, with the provision 
that if it was rejected, Kansas should be kept out of the Union 
until she had the full ratio of population required for a member 
of Congress, — thus in effect declaring that if the people of 
Kansas would only consent to come into the Union under the 
Lecompton Constitution, and have a Slave State when they did 
not want it, they should be admitted with a population of 35,000 ; 
but that if they were so obstinate as to insist upon having just 
such a constitution as they thought best, and to desire admission 
as a free State, then they should be kept out until they had 
93,420 inhabitants. I then said, and I now repeat to you, that 
whenever Kansas has people enough for a Slave State she has 
people enough for a Free State. I was and am willing to adopt 
the rule that no State shall ever come into the Union until she 
has the full ratio of population for a member of Congress, 
provided that rule is made uniform. I made that proposition in 
the Senate last winter, but a majority of the senators would not 
agree to it ; and I then said to them. If you will not adopt the 
general rule, I will not consent to make an exception of Kansas. 



332 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

I hold that it is a violation of the fundamental principles of 
this government to throw the weight of Federal power into the 
scale, either in favor of the Free or the Slave States. Equality 
among all the States of this Union is a fundamental principle in 
our political system. We have no more right to throw the 
weight of the Federal Government into the scale in favor of the 
slaveholding than the Free States, and last of all should our 
friends in the South consent for a moment that Congress should 
withhold its powers either way when they know that there is a 
majority against them in both Houses of Congress. 

Fellow-citizens, how have the supporters of the English bill 
stood up to their pledges not to admit Kansas until she obtained 
a population of 93,420 in the event she rejected the Lecompton 
Constitution? How? The newspapers inform us that English 
himself, whilst conducting his canvass for re-election, and in 
order to secure it, pledged himself to his constituents that if 
returned he would disregard his own bill and vote to admit Kansas 
into the Union with such population as she might have when she 
made application. We are informed that every Democratic 
candidate for Congress in all the States where elections have 
recently been held was pledged against the English bill, with 
perhaps one or two exceptions. Now, if I had only done as 
these anti-Lecompton men who voted for the English bill in 
Congress, pledging themselves to refuse to admit Kansas if she 
refused to become a Slave State until she had a population of 
93,420, and then returned to their people, forfeited their pledge, 
and made a new pledge to admit Kansas at any time she applied, 
without regard to population, I would have had no trouble. You 
saw the whole power and patronage of the Federal Government 
wielded in Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania to re-elect anti- 
Lecompton men to Congress who voted against Lecompton, then 
voted for the English bill, and then denounced the English bill, 
and pledged themselves to their people to disregard it. My sin 
consists in not having given a pledge, and then in not having 
afterward forfeited it. For that reason, in this State, every post- 
master, every route agent, every collector of the ports, and 
every Federal office-holder forfeits his head the moment he 
expresses a preference for the Democratic candidates against Lin- 
coln and his Abolition associates. A Democratic Administration 
which we helped to bring into power deems it consistent with its 
fidelity to principle and its regard to duty to wield its power in 
this State in behalf of the Republican Abolition candidates in 
every county and every Congressional District against the 
Democratic party. All I have to say in reference to the matter 
is, that if that Administration have not regard enough for 
principle, if they are not sufficiently attached to the creed of the 
Democratic party, to bury forever their personal hostilities in 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 333 

order to succeed in carrying out our glorious principles, I have. 
I have no personal difficulty with Mr. Buchanan or his Cabinet. 
He chose to make certain recommendations to Congress, as 
he had a right to do, on the Lecompton question. I could not 
vote in favor of them. I had as much right to judge for myself 
how I should vote as he had how he should recommend. He 
undertook to say to me, " If you do not vote as I tell you, I will 
take off the heads of your friends." I replied to him, "You 
did not elect me. I represent Illinois, and I am accountable to 
Illinois, as my constituency, and to God ; but not to the President 
or to any other power on earth." 

And now this warfare is made on me because I would not 
surrender my convictions of duty, because I would not abandon 
my constituency, and receive the orders of the executive author- 
ities how I should vote in the Senate of the United States. I 
hold that an attempt to control the Senate on the part of the 
Executive is subversive of the principles of our Constitution. 
The Executive department is independent of the Senate, and the 
Senate is independent of the President. In matters of legislation 
the President has a veto on the action of the Senate, and in ap- 
pointments and treaties the Senate has a veto on the President. 
He has no more right to tell me how I shall vote on his appoint- 
ments than I have to tell him whether he shall veto or approve a 
bill that the Senate has passed. Whenever you recognize the 
right of the Executive to say to a senator, " Do this, or I will 
take ofT the heads of your friends," you convert this government 
from a republic into a despotism. Whenever you recognize the 
right of a President to say to a member of Congress, " Vote as 
I tell you, or I will bring a power to bear against you at home 
which will crush you," you destroy the independence of the rep- 
resentative, and convert him into a tool of Executive power. I 
resisted this invasion of the constitutional rights of a senator, 
and I intend to resist it as long as I have a voice to speak or a 
vote to give. Yet Mr. Buchanan cannot provoke me to abandon 
one iota of Democratic principles out of revenge or hostility to 
his course. I stand by the platform of the Democratic party, 
and by its organization, and support its nominees. If there are 
any who choose to bolt, the fact only shows that they are not as 
good Democrats as I am. 

My friends, there never was a time when it was as important 
for the Democratic party, for all national men, to rally and stand 
together, as it is to-day. We find all sectional men giving up 
past differences and continuing the one question of slavery ; and 
when we find sectional men thus uniting, we should unite to resist 
them and their treasonable designs. Such was the case in 1850, 
when Clay left the quiet and peace of his home, and again 
entered upon public life to quell agitation and restore peace to a 



334 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

distracted Union. Then we Democrats, with Cass at our head, 
welcomed Henry Clay, whom the whole nation regarded as 
having been preserved by God for the times. He became our 
leader in that great fight, and we rallied around him the same as 
the Whigs rallied around old Hickory in 1832 to put down nulli- 
fication. Thus you see that whilst Whigs and Democrats fought 
fearlessly in old times about banks, the tariff, distribution, the 
specie circular, and the sub-treasury, all united as a band ol 
brothers when the peace, harmony, or integrity of the Union was 
imperiled. It was so in 1850, when Abolitionism had even so 
far divided this country, North and South, as to endanger the 
peace of the Union ; Whigs and Democrats united in establishing 
the Compromise Measures of that year, and restoring tranquillity 
and good feeling. These measures passed on the joint action of 
the two parties. They rested on the great principle that the 
people of each State and each Territory should be left perfectly 
free to form and regulate their domestic institutions to suit them- 
selves. You Whigs and we Democrats justified them in that 
principle- In 1854, when it became necessary to organize the 
Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, I brought forward the bill 
on the same principle. In the Kansas-Nebraska bill you find it 
declared to be the true intent and meaning of the Act not to 
legislate slavery into any State or Territory, nor to exclude it 
therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form 
and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way. I 
stand on that same platform in 1858 that I did in 1850, 1854, and 
1856. The Washington " Union," pretending to be the organ of 
the Administration, in the number of the 5th of this month 
devotes three columns and a half to establish these propositions : 
first, that Douglas, in his Freeport speech, held the same doctrine 
that he did in his Nebraska bill in 1854; second, that in 1854 
Douglas justified the Nebraska bill upon the ground that it was 
based upon the same principle as Clay's Compromise Measures 
of 1850. The " Union " thus proved that Douglas was the same 
in 1858 that he was in 1856, 1854, and 1850, and consequently 
argued that he was never a Democrat. Is it not funny that I was 
never a Democrat? There is no pretence that I have changed a 
hair's breadth. The " Union " proves by my speeches that I 
explained the Compromise Measures of 1850 just as I do now, 
and that I explained the Kansas and Nebraska bill in 1854 just 
as I did in my Freeport speech, and yet says that I am not a 
Democrat, and cannot be trusted, because I have not changed 
during the whole of that time. It has occurred to me that in 
1854 the author of the Kansas and Nebraska bill was considered 
a pretty good Democrat. It has occurred to me that in 1856, 
when I was exerting every nerve and every energj-^ for James 
Buchanan, standing on the same platform then that I do now, 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 335 

that I was a pretty good Democrat. They now tell me that I 
am not a Democrat, because I assert that the people of a Terri- 
tory, as well as those of a State, have the right to decide for 
themselves whether slavery can or cannot exist in such Territory. 
Let me read what James Buchanan said on that point when he 
accepted the Democratic nomination for the Presidency in 1856. 
In his letter of acceptance, he used the following language : — 

" The recent legislation of Co.ngress respecting domestic slavery, 
derived as it has been from the original and pure fountain of legiti- 
mate political power, the will of the majority, promises ere long to 
allay the dangerous excitement. This legislation is founded upon 
principles as ancient as free government itself, and, in accordance 
with them, has simply declared that the people of a Territory, like 
those of a State, shall decide for themselves whether slavery shall or 
shall not exist within their limits." 

Dr. Hope will there find my answer to the question he pro- 
pounded to me before I commenced speaking. Of course, no 
man will consider it an answer who is outside of the Democratic 
organization, bolts Democratic nominations, and indirectly aids to 
put Abolitionists into power over Democrats. But whether Dr. 
Hope considers it an answer or not, every fair-minded man will 
see that James Buchanan has answered the question, and has as- 
serted that the people of a Territory, like those of a State, shall 
decide for themselves whether slavery shall or shall not exist 
within their limits. I answer specifically if you want a further 
answer, and say that while under the decision of the Supreme 
Court, as recorded in the opinion of Chief Justice Taney, slaves 
are property like all other property, and can be carried into any 
Territory of the United States the same as any other description 
of property, yet when you get them there they are subject to the 
local law of the Territory iust like all other property. You will 
find in a recent speech delivered by that able and eloquent 
statesman, Hon. Jefferson Davis, at Bangor, Maine, that he took 
the same view of this subject that I did in my Freeport speech. 
He there said : — 

" If the inhabitants of any Territory should refuse to enact such 
laws and police regulations as would give security to their property 
or to his, it would be rendered more or less valueless in proportion to 
the difficulties of holding it without such protection. In the case of 
property in the labor of man, or what is usually called slave property, 
the insecurity would be so great that the owner could not ordinarily 
retain it. Therefore, though the right would remain, the remedy 
being withheld, it would follow that the owner would be practically 
debarred, by the circumstances of the case, from taking slave prop- 
erty into a Territory where the sense of the inhabitants was opposed 
to its introduction. So much for the oft-repeated fallacy of forcing 
slavery upon any community." 



336 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

You will also find that the distinguished Speaker of the 
present House of Representatives, Hon. Jas. L. Orr, construed 
the Kansas and Nebraska bill in this same way in 1856, and 
also that great intellect of the South, Alex. H. Stephens, put the 
same construction upon it in Congress that I did in m}^ Freeport 
speech. The whole South are rallying to the support of the 
doctrine that if the people of a Territory want slavery, they 
have a right to have it, and if they do not want it, that no power 
on earth can force it upon them. I hold that there is no prin- 
ciple on earth more sacred to all the friends of freedom than 
that which says that no institution, no law, no constitution, 
should be forced on an unwilling people contrary to their wishes ; 
and I assert that the Kansas and Nebraska bill contains that 
principle. It is the great principle contained in that bill. It is 
the principle on which James Buchanan was made President. 
Without that principle, he never would have been made 
President of the United States. I will never violate or 
abandon that doctrine, if I have to stand alone. I have resisted 
the blandishments and threats of power on the one side, and 
seduction on the other, and have stood immovably for that prin- 
ciple, fighting for it when assailed by Northern mobs, or threat- 
ened by Southern hostility. I have defended it against the 
North and the South, and I will defend it against whoever assails 
it, and I will follow it wherever its logical conclusions lead me. 
I say to you that there is but one hope, one safety for this coun- 
try, and that is to stand immovably by that principle which de- 
clares the right of each State and each Territory to decide these 
questions for themselves. This government was founded on 
that principle, and must be administered in the same sense in 
which it was founded. 

But the Abolition party really think that under the Declara- 
tion of Independence the negro is equal to the white man, and 
that negro equality is an inalienable right conferred by the 
Almighty, and hence that all human laws in violation of it are 
null and void. With such men it is no use for me to argue. I 
hold that the signers of the Declaration of Independence had 
no reference to negroes at all when they declared all men to be 
created equal. They did not mean negro, nor the savage 
Indians, nor the Feejee Islanders, nor any other barbarous race. 
They were speaking of white men. They alluded to men of 
European birth and European descent, — to white men, and to 
none others, — when they declared that doctrine. I hold that 
this government was established on the white basis. It was 
established by white men for the benefit of white men and their 
posterity forever, and should be administered by white men, and 
none others. But it does not follow, by any means, that merely 
because the negro is not a citizen, and merely because he is not 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 337 

pur equal, that, therefore, he should be a slave. On the con- 
trary, it does follow that we ought to extend to the negro race, 
and to all other dependent races, all the rights, all the privileges, 
and all the immunities which they can exercise consistently with 
the safety of society. Humanity requires that we should give 
them all these privileges ; Christianity commands that we should 
extend those privileges to them. The question then arises. 
What are those privileges, and what is the nature and extent of 
them? My answer is, that that is a question which each State 
must answer for itself. We in Illinois have decided it for our- 
selves. We tried slavery, kept it up for twelve years, and finding 
that it was not profitable, we abolished it for that reason, and 
became a Free State. We adopted in its stead the policy that a 
negro in this State shall not be a slave and shall not be a citizen. 
We have a right to adopt that policy. For my part, I think it is 
a wise and sound policy for us. You in Missouri must judge for 
yourselves whether it is a wise policy for you. If you choose to 
follow our example, very good ; if you reject it, still well, — it is 
your business, not ours. So with Kentucky. Let Kentucky 
adopt a policy to suit herself. If we do not like it we will keep 
away from it ; and if she does not like ours, let her stay at home, 
mind her own business, and let us alone. If the people of all 
the States will act on that great principle, and each State mind 
its own business, attend to its own afTairs, take care of its own 
negroes, and not meddle with its neighbors, then there will be 
peace between the North and the South, the East and the West, 
throughout the whole Union. 

Why can we not thus have peace? Why should we thus 
allow a sectional party to agitate this country, to array the North 
against the South, and convert us into enemies instead of friends, 
merely that a few ambitious men may ride into power on a sec- 
tional hobby ? How long is it since these ambitious Northern men 
wished for a sectional organization? Did any one of them 
dream of a sectional party as long as the North was the weaker 
section and the South the stronger? Then all were opposed to 
sectional parties ; but the moment the North obtained the 
majority in the House and Senate by the admission of California, 
and could elect a President without the aid of Southern votes, 
that moment ambitious Northern men formed a scheme to excite 
the North against the South, and make the people be governed 
in their votes by geographical lines, thinking that the North, 
being the stronger section, would outvote the South, and conse- 
quently they, the leaders, would ride into office on a sectional 
hobby. I am told that my hour is out. It was very short. 



44 



338 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



MR. LINCOLN'S REPLY. 

Ladies and Gentlemen : I have been somewhat, in my 
own mind, complimented by a large portion of Judge Douglas's 
speech, — I mean that portion which he devotes to the controversy 
between himself and the present Administration. This is the 
seventh time Judge Douglas and myself have met in these joint 
discussions, and he has been gradually improving in regard to 
his war with the Administration. At Qiiincy, day before yester- 
day, he was a little more severe upon the Administration than I 
had heard him upon any occasion, and I took pains to com- 
pliment him for it. I then told him to " Give it to them with all 
the power he had;" and as some of them were present, I told 
them I would be very much obliged if they would give it to him 
in about the same way. I take it he has now vastly improved 
upon the attack he made then upon the Administration. I flatter 
myself he has really taken my advice on this subject. All I can 
say now is to re-commend to him and to them what I then com- 
mended, — to prosecute the war against one another in the most 
vigorous manner. I say to them again: " Go it, husband! — Go 
it, bear!" 

There is one other thing I will mention before I leave this 
branch of the discussion, — although I do not consider it much ot 
my business, any way. I refer to that part of the Judge's 
remarks where he undertakes to involve Mr. Buchanan in an in- 
consistency. He reads something from Mr. Buchanan, from 
which he undertakes to involve him in an inconsistency ; and he 
gets something of a cheer for having done so. I would only 
remind the Judge that while he is very valiantly fighting for the 
Nebraska bill and the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, it has 
been but a little while since he was the valiant advocate of the 
Missouri Compromise. I want to know if Buchanan has not 
as much right to be inconsistent as Douglas has? Has Douglas 
the exchisive right, in this country, of being 07i all sides of all 
qnestio7isf Is nobody allowed that high privilege but himself? 
Is he to have an entire monopoly on that subject? 

So far as Judge Douglas addressed his speech to me, or so 
far as it was about me, it is my business to pay some attention 
to it. I have heard the Judge state two or three times what he 
has stated to-day, — that in a speech which I made at Springfield, 
Illinois, I had in a very especial manner complained that the 
Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case had decided that a negro 
could never be a citizen of the United States. I have omitted 
by some accident heretofore to analyze this statement, and it is 
required of me to notice it now. In point of fact it is untrue. I 
never have complained especially of the Dred Scott decision be- 
cause it held that a negro could not be a citizen, and the Judge is 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 339 

always wrong when he says I ever did so complain of it. I have 
the speech here, and I will thank him or any of his friends to 
show where I said that a negro should be a citizen, and com- 
plained especially of the Dred Scott decision because it de- 
clared he could not be one. I have done no such thing ; and 
Judge Douglas, so persistently insisting that I have done so, 
has strongly impressed me with the belief of a predetermination 
on his part to misrepresent me. He could not get his foundation 
for insisting that I was in favor of this negro equality anywhere 
else as well as he could by assuming that untrue proposition. 
Let me tell this audience what is true in regard to that matter ; 
and the means by which they may correct me if I do not tell 
them truly is by a recurrence to the speech itself. I spoke ot 
the Dred Scott decision in my Springfield speech, and I was then 
endeavoring to prove that the Dred Scott decision was a portion 
of a system or scheme to make slavery national in this country. 
I pointed out what things had been decided by the court. I 
mentioned as a fact that they had decided that a negro could 
not be a citizen ; that they had done so, as I supposed, to deprive 
the negro, under alf circumstances, of the remotest possibility of 
ever becoming a citizen and claiming the rights of a citizen of 
the United States under a certain clause of the Constitution. I 
stated that, without making any complaint of it at all. I then 
went on and stated the other points decided in the case ; namely, 
that the bringing of a negro into the State of Illinois and holding 
him in slavery for two years here was a matter in regard to 
which they would not decide whether it would make him free or 
not ; that they decided the further point that taking him into a 
United States Territory where slavery was prohibited by Act of 
Congress did not make him free, because that Act of Congress, 
as they held, was unconstitutional. I mentioned these three 
things as making up the points decided in that case. I men- 
tioned them in a lump, taken in connection with the introduction 
of the Nebraska bill, and the amendment of Chase, offered at 
the time, declaratory of the right of the people of the Territories 
to exclude slavery, which was voted down by the friends of the 
bill. I mentioned all these things together, as evidence tending 
to prove a combination and conspiracy to make the institution of 
slavery national. In that connection and in that way I men- 
tioned the decision on the point that a negro could not be a 
citizen, and in no other connection. 

Out of this, Judge Douglas builds up his beautiful fabrica- 
tion of my purpose to introduce a perfect social and political 
equality between the white and black races. His assertion that 
I made an "especial objection " (that is his exact language) to 
the decision on this account, is untrue in point of fact. 

Now, while I am upon this subject, and as Henry Clay has 



340 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

been alluded to, I desire to place myself, in .connection with Mr. 
Clay, as nearly right before this people as may be. I am quite 
aware what the Judge's object is here by all these allusions. He 
knows that we are before an audience having strong sympathies 
southward, by relationship, place of birth, and so on. He desires 
to place me in an extremely Abolition attitude. He read upon a 
former occasion, and alludes, without reading, to-day to a por- 
tion of a speech which I delivered in Chicago. In his quotations 
from that speech, as he has made them upon former occasions, 
the extracts were taken in such a way as, I suppose, brings them 
within the definition of what is caWed g-ard ling; — taking portions 
of a speech which, when taken by themselves, do not present the 
entire sense of the speaker as expressed at the time. I propose, 
therefore, out of that same speech, to show how one portion of 
it which he skipped over (taking an extract before and an 
extract after) will give a different idea, and the true idea I 
intended to convey. It will take me some little time to read it, 
but I believe I will occupy the time that way. 

You have heard him frequently allude to my controversy with 
him in regard to the Declaration of Independence. I confess 
that I have had a struggle with Judge Douglas on that matter, 
and I will try briefly to place myself right in regard to it on this 
occasion. I said — and it is between the extracts Judge Douglas 
has taken from this speech, and put in his published speeches : 

" It may be argued that there are certain conditions that make 
necessities and impose them upon us, and to the extent that a necessity 
is imposed upon a man he must submit to it. I think that was the 
condition in which we found ourselves when we established this gov- 
ernment. We had slaves among us, we could not get our Constitu- 
tion unless we permitted them to remain in slavery, we could not 
secure the good we did secure if we grasped for more ; and having 
by necessity submitted to that much, it does not destroy the principle 
that is the charter of our liberties. Let the charter remain as our 
standard." 

Now, I have upon all occasions declared as strongly as 
Judge Douglas against the disposition to interfere with the 
existing institution of slavery. You hear me read it from the 
same speech from which he takes garbled extracts for the 
purpose of proving upon me a disposition to interfere with the 
institution of slavery, and establish a perfect social and political 
equality between negroes and white people. 

Allow me while upon this subject briefly to present one 
other extract from a speech of mine, more than a year ago, at 
Springfield, in discussing this very same question, soon after 
Judge Douglas took his ground that negroes were not included 
in the Declaration of Independence : — 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 341 

" I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to in- 
clude all men, but they did not mean to declare all men equal in all 
respects. They did not mean to say all men were equal in color, size, 
intellect, moral development, or social capacity. They defined with 
tolerable distinctness in what they did consider all men created equal, — 
equal in certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness. This they said, and this they meant. 
They didnot mean to assert the obvious untruth that all were then actu- 
ally enjoying that equality, or yet that they were about to confer it 
immediately upon them. In fact they had no power to confer such a 
boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforce- 
ment of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit. 

" They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society which 
should be familiar to all, — constantly looked to, constantly labored 
for, and even, though never perfectly attained, constantly approxi- 
mated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence, 
and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people, of all 
colors, everywhere. 

There again are the sentiments I have expressed in regard 
to the Declaration of Independence upon a former occasion, — 
sentiments which have been put in print and read wherever 
anybody cared to know what so humble an individual as myself 
chose to say in regard to it. 

At Galesburgh, the other day, I said, in answer to Judge 
Douglas, that three years ago there never had been a man, so far 
as I knew or believed, in the whole world, who had said that 
the Declaration of Independence did not include negroes in 
the term " all men." I reassert it to-day. I assert that Judge 
Douglas and all his friends may search tlfie whole records of the 
country, and it will be a matter of great astonishment to me if 
they shall be able to find that one human being three years ago 
had ever uttered the astounding sentiment that the term " all 
men" in the Declaration did not include the negro. Do not let 
me be misunderstood. I know that more than three years ago 
there were men who, finding this assertion constantly in the way 
of their schemes to bring about the ascendency and perpetuation 
of slavery, denied the truth of it. I know that Mr. Calhoun and 
all the politicians of his school denied the truth of the Declara- 
tion. I know that it ran along in the mouth of some Southern 
men for a period of years, ending at last in that shameful, though 
rather forcible, declaration of Pettit of Indiana, upon the floor 
of the United States Senate, that the Declaration of Independence 
was in that respect " a self-evident lie," rather than a self-evident 
truth. But I say, with a perfect knowledge of all this hawking 
at the Declaration without directly attacking it, that three years 
ago there never had lived a man who had ventured to assail it 
in the sneaking way of pretending to believe it, and then 
asserting it did not include the negro. I believe the first man 



342 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

who ever said it was Chief Justice Taney in the Dred Scott 
case, and the next to him was our friend Stephen A. Douglas. 
And now it has become the catchword of the entire party. I 
J would like to call upon his friends everywhere to consider how 
they have come in so short a time to view this matter in a way so 
entirely different from their former belief; to ask whether they 
are not being borne along by an irresistible current, — whither, 
they know not. 

In answer to my proposition at Galesburgh last week, I see 
that some man in Chicago has got up a letter, addressed to the 
Chicago "Times," to show, as he professes, that somebody had 
said so before ; and he signs himself "An Old Line Whig," if I 
remember correctly. In the first place, I would say he was not 
an old Line Whig. I am somewhat acquainted with old line 
Whigs from the origin to the end of that party ; I became pretty 
well acquainted with them, and I know they always had some 
sense, whatever else you could ascribe to them. I know there 
never was one who had not more sense than to try to show by 
the evidence he produces that some man had, prior to the time I 
named, said that negroes were not included in the term "all men" 
in the Declaration of Independence. What is the evidence he 
produces? I will bring forward his evidence, and let you see 
what he offers by way of showing that somebody more than 
three years ago had said negroes were not included in the 
Declaration. He brings forward part of a speech from Henry 
Clay, — the part of the speech of Henry Clay which I used to 
bring forward to prove precisely the contrary. I guess we are 
surrounded to some extent to-day by the old friends of Mr. 
Clay, and they will be glad to hear anything from that authority. 
While he was in Indiana a man presented a petition to liberate 
his negroes, and he (Mr. Clay) made a speech in answer to it, 
which I suppose he carefully wrote out himself and caused to be 
published. I have before me an extract from that speech which 
constitutes the evidence this pretended "Old Line Whig" at 
Chicago brought forward to show that Mr. Clay didn't suppose 
the negro was included in the Declaration of Independence. 
Hear what Mr. Clay said : — 

*' And what is the foundation of this appeal to me in Indiana to 
liberate the slaves under my care in Kentucky? It is a general dec- 
laration in the act announcing to the world the independence of the 
thirteen American colonies, that all men are created equal. Now, as 
an abstract principle, there is no doubt of the truth of that declaration; 
and it is desirable, in the original construction of society a^idin organ- 
ized societies, to keep it in view as a great fundamental principle. 
But, then, I apprehend that in no society that ever did exist, or ever 
shall be formed, was or can the equality asserted among the members 
of the human race be practically enforced and carried out. There are 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 343 

portions, large portions, — women, minors, insane, culprits, transient 
sojourners, — that will always probably remain subject to the govern- 
ment of another portion of the community," 

" That declaration, whatever may be the extent of its import, 
was made by the delegations of the thirteen States. In most of them 
slavery existed, and had long existed, and was established by law. It 
was introduced and forced upon the colonies by the paramount law 
of England. Do you believe that in making that declaration the 
States that concurred in it intended that it should be tortured into a 
virtual emancipation of all the slaves within their respective limits? 
Would Virginia and other Southern States have ever united in a dec- 
laration which was to be interpreted into an abolition of slavery 
among them? Did any one of the thirteen colonies entertain such a 
design or expectation? To impute such a secret and unavowed pur- 
pose, would be to charge a political fraud upon the noblest band of 
patriots that ever assembled in council, — a fraud upon the Confed- 
eracy of the Revolution ; a fraud upon the union of those States 
whose Constitution not only recognized the lawfulness of slavery, 
but permitted the importation of slaves from Africa until the year 
1808." 

This is the entire quotation brought forward to prove that 
somebody previous to three years ago had said the negro was 
not included in the term "all men" in the Declaration. How 
does it do so? In what way has it a tendency to prove that? 
Mr. Clay says it is true as an abstract principle that all men are 
created equal, but that we cannot practically apply it in all cases. 
He illustrates this by bringing forward the cases of females, 
minors, and insane persons, with whom it cannot be enforced ; 
but he says it is true as an abstract principle in the organization 
of society as well as in organized society and it should be kept 
in view as a fundamental principle. Let me read a few words 
more before I add some comments of my own. Mr. Clay says, 
a little further on : — 

" I desire no concealment of my opinions in regard to the insti- 
tution of slavery. I look upon it as a great evil, and deeply lament 
that we have derived it from the parental government and from 
our ancestors. But here they are, and the question is. How can they 
be best dealt with ? If a state of nature existed, and we were about 
to lay the foundations of society, ?io man ivould be more strongly op- 
posed than I should be to incorporating the institution of slavery ainong 
its elements.'''' 

Now, here in this same book, in this same speech, in this 
same extract, brought forward to prove that Mr. Clay held that 
the negro was not included in the Declaration of Independence, 
is no such statement on his part, but the declaration that it is a 
great fundamental truth which should be constantly kept in view 
in the organization of society and in societies already organized. 
But if I say a word about it ; if I attempt, as Mr. Clay said all 



344 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

good men ought to do, to keep it in view ; if, in this " organized 
society," I ask to have the public eye turned upon it ; if 1 ask, in 
relation to the organization of new Territories, that the public 
eye should be turned upon it, — forthwith I am villified as you 
hear me to-day. What have I done that I have not the license 
of Henry Clay's illustrious example here in doing? Have I done 
aught that I have not his authority for, while maintaining that in 
organizing new Territories and societies, this fundamental princi- 
ple should be regarded, and in organized society holding it up 
to the public view and recognizing what he recognized as the 
great principle of free government? 

And when this new principle — this new proposition that no 
. human being ever thought of three years ago— is brought for- 
•^ward, / coynhat it as having an evil tendency, if not an evil 
design. I combat it as having a tendency to dehumanize the 
negro, to take awa}^ from him the right of ever striving to be a 
man. I combat it as being one of the thousand things constantly 
done in these days to prepare the public mind to make property, 
and nothing but propert}^, of the negro in all the States of this 
Union. 

But there is a point that I wish, before leaving this part of 
the discussion, to ask attention to. I have read and I repeat the 
words of Henry Clay : — 

" I desire no concealment of my opinions in regard to the institu- 
tion of slavery. I look upon it as a great evil, and deeply lament that we 
have derived it from the parental government and from our ancestors. 
I wish every slave in the United States was in the country of his an- 
cestors. But here they are ; the question is, How can they best be dealt 
with? If a state of nature existed, and we were about to lay the 
foundations of society, no man would be more strongly opposed than 
I should be to incorporate the institution of slavery among its 
elements." 

The principle upon which I have insisted in this canvass is 
in relation to laying the foundations of new societies. I have 
never sought to apply these principles to the old States for the 
purpose of abolishing slavery in those States. It is nothing but 
a miserable perversion of what I have said, to assume that I have 
declared Missouri, or any other Slave State, shall emancipate her 
slaves ; I have proposed no such thing. But when Mr. Clay 
says that in laying the foundations of societies in our Territories 
where it does not exist, he would be opposed to the introduction 
of slavery as an element, I insist that we have his wai-rant — his 
license — for insisting upon the exclusion of that element which 
he declared in such strong and emphatic language was most 
hateful to him. 

Judge Douglas has again referred to a Springfield speech in 
which I said " a house divided against itself cannot stand." The 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 345 

Judge has so often made the entire quotation from that speech 
that I can make it from memory. I used this language : — 

" We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated 
with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to 
the slavery agitation. Under the operation of this policy, that agita- 
tion has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my 
opinion it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and 
passed. ' A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this 
government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free. 
I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be 
divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the 
opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it 
where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course 
of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward till it 
shall become alike lawful in all the States, — old as well as new, North 
as well as South." 

That extract and the sentiments expressed in it have been 
extremely offensive to Judge Douglas. He has warred upon 
them as Satan wars upon the Bible. His perversions upon it are 
endless. Here now are my views upon it in brief. 

I said we were now far into the fifth year since a policy was 
initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of putting 
an end to the slavery agitation. Is it not so? When that 
Nebraska bill was brought forward four years ago last January, 
was it not for the "avowed object" of putting an end to the 
slavery agitation? We were to have no more agitation in Con- 
gress ; it was all to be banished to the Territories. By the way, 
I will remark here that, as Judge Douglas is very fond of com- 
plimenting Mr. Crittenden in these days, Mr. Crittenden has 
said there was a falsehood in that whole business, for there was^ 
no slavery agitation at that time to allay. We were for a little 
while qtiiet on the troublesome thing, and that very allaying 
plaster of Judge Douglas's stirred it up again. But was it not 
understood or intimated with the " confident promise " of putting 
an end to the slavery agitation? Surely it was. In every 
speech you heard Judge Douglas make, until he got into this 
" imbroglio," as they call it, with the Administration about the 
Lecompton Constitution, every speech on that Nebraska bill was 
full of his felicitations that we were j'tist at the end of the slavery 
agitation. ' The last tip of the last joint of the old serpent's tail 
was just drawing out of view. But has it proved so? I have 
asserted that under that policy that agitation "has not only not 
ceased, but has constancy augmented." When was there 
ever a greater agitation in Congress than last winter? When 
was it as great in the country as to-day? 

There was a collateral object in the introduction of that 
Nebraska polic}^, which was to clothe the people of the Territories 



346 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

with a superior degree of self-government, beyond what they 
had ever had before. The first object and the main one of con- 
ferring upon the people a higher degree of "self-government" 
is a question of fact to be determined by you in answer to a 
single question. Have you ever heard or known of a people 
anywhere on earth who had as little to do as, in the first instance 
of its use, the people of Kansas had with this same right of 
"self-government"? In its main policy and in its collateral 
object, it has been nothing but a living, creeping lie from the time 
of its introduction till to-day. 

I have intimated that I thought the agitation would not 
cease until a crisis should have been reached and passed. I have 
stated in what way I thought it would be reached and passed. 
I have said that it might go one way or the other. We might, 
by arresting the further spread of it, and placing it where the 
fathers originally placed it, put it where the public mind should rest 
in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. Thus 
the agitation may cease. It may be pushed forward until it shall 
become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new. North 
as well as South. I have said, and I repeat, my wish is that the 
further spread of it may be arrested, and that it may be placed 
where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the 
course of ultimate extinction. I have expressed that as my 
wish. I entertain the opinion, upon evidence sufficient to my 
mind, that the fathers of this government placed that institution 
where the public mind did rest in the belief that it was in the 
course of ultimate extinction. Let me ask why they made pro- 
vision that the source of slavery — the African slave-trade — 
should be cut oflT at the end of twenty years? Why did they 
make provision that in all the new territory we owned at that 
time slavery should be forever inhibited? Why stop its spread 
in one direction, and cut off its source in another, if they did not 
look to its being placed in the course of its ultimate extinction? 

Again : the institution of slavery is only mentioned in the 
Constitution of the United States two or three times, and in 
neither of these cases does the word " slavery " or " negro race " 
occur ; but covert language is used each time, and for a purpose 
full of significance. What is the language in regard to the pro- 
hibition of the African slave-trade? It runs in about this way: 
"The migration or importation of such persons as any of the 
States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be pro- 
hibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight 
hundred and eight." 

The next allusion in the Constitution to the question of 
slavery and the black race is on the subject of the basis of rep- 
resentation, and there the language used is : — "M 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 347 

" Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among 
the several States which may be included within this Union, accord- 
ing to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding 
to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service 
for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, — three-fifths of 
all other persons." 

It says " persons," not slaves, not negroes ; but this " three- 
fifths " can be applied to no other class among us than the negroes. 

Lastly, in the provision for the reclamation of fugitive slaves, 
it is said : " No person held to service or labor in one State, 
under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in conse- 
quence of any law or regulation therein be discharged from such 
service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party 
to whom such service or labor may be due." There again there 
is no mention of the word "negro" or of slavery. In all three 
of these places, being the only allusions to slavery in the instru- 
ment, covert language is used. Language is used not suggesting 
that slavery existed or that the black race were among us. And 
I understand the contemporaneous history of those times to be 
that covert language was used with a purpose, and that purpose 
was that in our Constitution, which it was hoped and is still 
hoped will endure forever, — when it should be read by intelli- 
gent and patriotic men, after the institution of slavery had passed 
from among us, — there should be nothing on the face of the 
great charter of liberty suggesting that such a thing as negro 
slavery had ever existed among us. This is part of the evidence 
that the fathers of the government expected and intended the 
institution of slavery to come to an end. They expected and 
intended that it should be in the course of ultimate extinction. 
And when I say that I desire to see the further spread of it 
arrested, I only say I desire to see that done which the fathers 
have first done. When I say I desire to see it placed where the 
public mind will rest in the belief that it is in the course of ulti- 
mate extinction, I only say I desire to see it placed where they 
placed it. It is not true that our fathers, as Judge Douglas 
assumes, made this government part slave and part free. Under- 
stand the sense in which he puts it. He assumes that slavery is 
a rightful thing within itself, — was introduced by the framers of 
the Constitution. The exact truth is, that they found the insti- 
tution existing among us, and they left it as the}'- found it. But 
in making the government they left this institution with many 
clear marks of disapprobation upon it. They found slavery 
among them, and they left it among them because of the diffi- 
culty — the absolute impossibility — of its immediate removal. 
And when Judge Douglas asks me why we cannot let it remain 
part slave and part free, as the fathers of the government made 
it, he asks a question based upon an assumption which is itself a 



348 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

falsehood ; and I turn upon him and ask him the question, when 
the policy that the fathers of the government had adopted in 
relation to this element among us was the best policy in the 
world, the only wise policy, the only policy that we can ever 
safely continue upon, that will ever give us peace, unless this 
dangerous element masters us all and becomes a national insti- 
tution, — I turn ti foil Jmn and ask hhn -why he could not leave it 
alotie. I tvirn and ask him why he was driven to the necessity^ 
of introducing a new -policy in regard to it. He has himself said 
he introduced a new policy. He said so in his speech on the 
22d of March of the present year, 1858. I ask him why he could 
not let it remain where our fathers placed it. I ask, too, of Judge 
Douglas and his friends why we shall not again place this insti- 
tution upon the basis on which the fathers left it. I ask you, 
when he infers that I am in favor of setting the Free and Slave 
States at war, when the institution was placed in that attitude by 
those who made the Constitution, did they make anytvar? If we 
had no war out of it when thus placed, wherein is the ground of 
belief that we shall have war out of it if we return to that policy? 
Have we had any peace upon this matter springing from any 
other basis? I maintain that we have not. I have proposed 
nothing more than a return to the policy of the fathers."" 

I confess, when I propose a certain measure of policy, it is 
not enough for me that I do not intend anything evil in the 
result, but it is incumbent on me to show that it has not a tendency 
to that result. I have met Judge Douglas in that point of view. 
I have not only made the declaration that I do not mean to pro- 
duce a conflict between the States, but I have tried to show by 
fair reasoning, and I think I have shown to the minds of fair 
men, that I propose nothing but what has a most peaceful ten-i- 
dency. The quotation that I happened to make in that Spring- 
field speech, that " a house divided against itself cannot stand," 
and which has proved so oflensive to the Judge, was part and 
parcel of the same thing. He tries to show that variety in the 
domestic institutions of the different States is necessary and indis- 
pensable. I do not dispute it. I have no controversy with 
Judge Douglas about that. I shall very readily agree with him 
that it would be foolish for us to insist upon having a cranberry 
law here in Illinois, where we have no cranberries, because they 
have a cranberry law in Indiana, where they have cranberries. 
I should insist that it would be exceedingly wrong in us to deny 
to Virginia the right to enact oyster laws, where they have oys- 
ters, because we want no such laws here. I understand, I hope, ,' 
quite as well as Judge Douglas or anybody else, that the variety 
in the soil and climate and face of the country, and consequent . 
variety in the industrial pursuits and productions of a country,, 
require systems of law conforming to this variety in the natural 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 349 

features of the country. I understand quite as well as Judge 
Douglas that if we here raise a barrel of flour more than we 
want, and the Louisianians raise a barrel of sugar more than 
they want, it is of mutual advantage to exchange. That pro- 
duces commerce, brings us together, and makes us better friends. 
We like one another the more for it. And I understand as well 
as Judge Douglas, or anybody else, that these mutual accommo- 
dations are the cements which bind together the different parts of 
this Union ; that instead of being a thing to " divide the house," 
— figuratively expressing the Union, — they tend to sustain it ; 
they are the props of the house, tending always to hold it up. 

But when I have admitted all this, I ask if there is any 
parallel between these things and this institution of slavery? I 
do not see that there is any parallel at all between them. Con- 
sider it. When have we had any difficulty or quarrel amongst 
ourselves about the cranberry laws of Indiana, or the oyster laws 
of Virginia, or the pine-lumber laws of Maine, or the fact that 
Louisiana produces sugar, and Illinois flour? When have we 
had any quarrels over these things ? When have we had perfect 
peace in regard to this thing which I say is an element of discord 
in this Union? We have sometimes had peace, but when was it? 
It was when the institution of slavery remained quiet where it 
was. We have had difficulty and turmoil whenever it has made 
a struggle to spread itself where it was not. I ask, then, if ex- 
perience does not speak in thunder-tones, telling us that the 
policy which has given peace to the country heretofore, being 
returned to, gives the greatest promise of peace again. You 
may say, and Judge Douglas has intimated the same thing, that 
all this difficulty in regard to the institution of slavery is the 
mere agitation of office-seekers and ambitious Northern politicians. 
He thinks we want to get " his place," I suppose. I agree that 
there are oflSce-seekers amongst us. The Bible says somewhere 
that we are desperately selfish. I think we would have discov- 
ered that fact without the Bible. I do not claim that I am any 
less so than the average of men, but I do claim that I am not 
more selfish than Judge Douglas. 

But is it true that all the difficulty and agitation we have in 
regard to this institution of slavery springs from office-seeking, 
from the mere ambition of politicians? Is that the tnith? How 
many times have we had danger from this question? Go back 
to the day of the Missouri Compromise. Go back to the Nullifi- 
cation question, at the bottom of which lay this same slavery 
question. Go back to the time of the Annexation of Texas. Go 
back to the troubles that led to the Compromise of 1850. You 
will find that every time, with the single exception of the Nullifi- 
cation question, they sprung from an endeavor to spread this 
institution. There never was a party in the history of this 
\ 



350 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

country, and there probably never will be, of sufficient strength 
to disturb the general peace of the country. Parties themselves 
may be divided and quarrel on minor questions, yet it extends 
not beyond the parties themselves. But does not this question 
make a disturbance outside of political circles? Does it not 
enter into the churches and rend them asunder? What divided 
the great Methodist Church into two parts. North and South? 
What has raised this constant disturbance in every Presbyterian 
General Assembly that meets? What disturbed the Unitarian 
Church in this very city two years ago? What has jarred and 
shaken the great American Tract Society recently, not yet split- 
ting it, but sure to divide it in the end? Is it not this same 
mighty, deep-seated power that somehow operates on the minds 
of men, exciting and stirring them up in ever}' avenue of society, 
— in politic^, in religion, in literature, in morals, in all the mani- 
fold relations of life? Is this the work of politicians? Is that 
irresistible power, which for fifty years has shaken the govern- 
ment and agitated the people, to be stilled and subdued by pre- 
tending that it is an exceedingly simple thing, and we ought not 
to talk about it? If you will get everybody else to stop talking 
about it, I assure you I will quit before they have half done so. 
But where is the philosophy or statesmanship which assumes that 
you can quiet that disturbing element in our societ}' which has 
disturbed us for more than half a century, which has been the 
only serious danger that has threatened our institutions,^ — I say, 
where is the philosophy or the statesmanship based on the assump- 
tion that we are to quit talking about it, and that the public mind is 
all at once to cease being agitated by it? Yet this is the policy 
here in the North that Douglas is advocating, — that we are to 
care nothing about it ! I ask you if it is not a false philosophy. 
Is it not a false statesmanship that undertakes to build up a sys- 
tem of policy upon the basis of caring nothing about the very 
thing that everybody does care the most about ? — a thing which all 
experience has shown we care a very great deal about? 

The Judge alludes very often in the course of his remarks to 
the exclusive right which the States have to decide the whole 
thing for themselves. I agree with him very readily that the 
different States have that right. He is but fighting a man of 
straw when he assumes that I am contending against the right of 
the States to do as they please about it. Our controversy with him 
is in regard to the new Territories. We agree that when the 
States come in as States they have the right and the power to do 
as they please. We have no power as citizens of the Free States, 
or in our Federal capacity as members of the Federal Union 
through the General Government, to disturb slavery in the States 
where it exists. We profess constantly that we have no more 
inclination than belief in the power of the government to disturb 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 351 

it ; yet we are driven constantly to defend ourselves from the 
assumption that we are warring upon the rights of the States. 
What I insist upon is, that the new Territories shall be kept free 
from it while in the Territorial condition. Judge Douglas 
assumes that we have no interest in them, — that we have no 
right whatever to interfere. I think we have some interest. I 
think that as white men we have. Do we not wish for an outlet 
for our surplus population, if I may so express myself? Do we 
not feel an interest in getting to that outlet with such institutions 
as we would like to have prevail there? li you go to the Terri- 
tory opposed to slavery, and another man comes upon the same 
ground with his slave, upon the assumption that the things are 
equal, it turns out that he has the equal right all his way, and 
you have no part of it your way. If he goes in and makes it 
a Slave Territory, and by consequence a Slave State, is it not 
time that those who desire to have it a Free State were on equal 
ground? Let me suggest it in a different way. How many 
Democrats are there about here ["A thousand"] who have left 
Slave States and come into the Free State of Illinois to get rid 
of the institution of slavery? [Another voice : "A thousand and 
one."] I reckon there are a thousand and one. I will ask you, 
if the policy you are now advocating had prevailed when this 
country was in a Territorial condition, where would you have 
gone to get rid of it? Where would you have found your Free 
State or Territory to go to? And when hereafter, for any cause, 
the people in this place shall desire to find new homes, if they 
wish to be rid of the institution, where will they find the place 
to go to? 

Now, irrespective of the moral aspect of this question as to 
whether there is a right or wrong in enslaving a negro, I am still 
in favor of our new Territories being in such a condition that 
white men may find a home, — may find some spot where they 
can better their condition ; where they can settle upon new soil 
and better their condition in life. I am in favor of this, not 
merel}?^ (I must say it here as I have elsewhere) for our own 
people who are born amongst us, but as an outlet for J?'ee white 
■peo-ple everywhere, the world over, — in which Hans, and Bap- 
tiste, and Patrick, and all other men from all the world, may find 
new homes and better their conditions in life. 

I have stated upon former occasions, and I may as well state 
again, what I understand to be the real issue in this controversy 
between Judge Douglas and myself. On the point of my want- 
ing to make war between the Free and the Slave States, there 
has been no issue between us. So, too, when he assumes that I 
am in favor of introducing a perfect social and political equality 
between the white and black races. These are false issues, upon 
which Judge Douglas has tried to force the controversy. There 



352 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

is no foundation in truth for the charge that I maintain either of 
these propositions. The real issue in this controversy — the one 
pressing upon every mind — is the sentiment on the part of one class 
that looks upon the institution of slavery as a wrong, and of another 
class that does not look upon it as a wrong. The sentiment that 
contemplates the institution of slavery in this countr}^ as a wrong 
is the sentiment of the Republican party. It is the sentiment 
around which all their actions, all their arguments, circle, from 
which all their propositions radiate. They look upon it as being 
a moral, social, and political wrong; and while they contem- 
plate it as such, they nevertheless have due regard for its actual 
existence among us, and the difficulties of getting rid of it in any 
satisfactory way and to all the constitutional obligations thrown 
about it. Yet, having a due regard for these, they desire a 
policy in regard to it that looks to its not creating any more 
danger. They insist that it should, as far as may be, be treated 
as a wrong ; and one of the methods of treating it as a wrong 
is to make -provision that it shall grow no larger. They also 
desire a policy that looks to a peaceful end of slavery at some 
time, as being wrong. These are the views they entertain in 
regard to it as I understand them ; and all their sentiments, all 
their arguments and propositions, are brought within this range. 
I have said, and I repeat it here, that if there be a man amongst 
us who does not think that the institution of slavery is wrong in 
any one of the aspects of which I have spoken, he is misplaced, 
and ought not to be with us. And if there be a man amongst 
us who is so impatient of it as a wrong as to disregard its actual 
presence among us and the difficulty of getting rid of it sud- 
denly in a satisfactory way, and to disregard the constitutional 
obligations thrown about it, that man is misplaced if he is on 
our platform. We disclaim sympathy with him in practical 
action. He is not placed properly with us. 

On this subject of treating it as a wrong, and limiting its 
spread, let me say a word. Has anything ever threatened the 
existence of this Union save and except this very institution of 
slavery? What is it that we hold most dear amongst us? Our 
own liberty and prosperity. What has ever threatened our lib- 
erty and prosperity, save and except this institution of slavery ? 
If this is true, how do you propose to improve the condition of 
things by enlarging slavery, — by spreading it out and making 
it bigger? You may have a wen or cancer upon your person, 
and not be able to cut it out, lest you bleed to death ; but surely 
it is no way to cure it, to engraft it and spread it over your whole 
body. That is no proper way of treating what you regard a 
wrong. You see this peaceful way of dealing with it as a wrong, 
— restricting the spread of it, and not allowing it to go into new 
countries where it has not already existed. That is the peaceful 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 353 

way, the old-fashioned way, the way in which the fathers them- 
selves set us the example. 

On the other hand, I have said there is a sentiment which 
treats it as not being wrong. That is the Democratic sentiment 
of this day. I do not mean to say that every man who stands 
within that range positively asserts that it is right. That class 
will include all who positively assert that it is right, and all who, 
like Judge Douglas, treat it as indifferent and do not say it is either 
right or wrong. These two classes of men fall within the gen- 
eral class of those who do not look upon it as a wrong. And if 
there be among you anybody who supposes that he, as a Demo- 
crat, can consider himself " as much opposed to slavery as any- 
body," I would like to reason with him. You never treat it as 
a wrong. What other thing that you consider as a wrong do 
you deal with as you deal with that? Perhaps you say it 
is wrong, but your leader never does, and you qua7-rcl with 
anybody who says it is wrong. Although you pretend to say so 
yourself, you can find no fit place to deal with it as a wrong. 
You must not say anything about it in the Free States, 
because it is not here. You must not say anything about it in the 
Slave States, because it is there. You must not say anything about 
it in the pulpit, because that is religion, and has nothing to do 
with it. You must not say anything about it in politics, because 
that will disturb the security ^" my place."" There is no place to 
talk about it as being a wrong, although you say yourself it is a 
wrong. But, finally, you will screw yourself up to the belief that if 
the people of the Slave States should adopt a system of gradual 
emancipation on the slavery question, you would be in favor of 
it. You would be in favor of it. You say that is getting it in 
the right place, and you would be glad to see it succeed. But 
you are deceiving yourself. You all know that Frank Blair and 
Gratz Brown, down there in St. Louis, undertook to introduce 
that system in Missouri. They fought as valiantly as they could 
for the system of gradual emancipation which you pretend you 
would be glad to see succeed. Now, I will bring you to the 
test. After a hard fight they were beaten, and when the news 
came over here, you threw up your hats and hurrahed ^or 
Democracy. More than that, take all the argument made in 
favor of the system you have proposed, and it carefully excludes 
the idea that there is anything wrong in the institution of slavery. 
The arguments to sustain that policy carefully excluded it. 
Even here to-day you heard Judge Douglas quarrel with me 
because I uttered a wish that it might sometime come to an end. 
Although Henry Clay could say he wished every slave in the 
United States was in the country of his ancestors, I am denounced 
by those pretending to respect Henry Clay for uttering a wish 
that it might sometime, in some peaceful way, come to an end. 

46 



354 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

The Democratic policy in regard to that institution will not 
tolerate the merest breath, the slightest hint, of the least degree 
of wrong about it. Try it by some of Judge Douglas's argu- 
ments. He says he "don't care whether it is voted up or voted 
down " in the Territories. I do not care myself, in dealing with 
that expression, whether it is intended to be expressive of his 
individual sentiments on the subject, or only of the national 
policy he desires to have established. It is alike valuable for 
my purpose. Any man can say that who does not see anything 
wrong in slavery ; but no man can logically say it who does 
see a wrong in it, because no man can logically say he don't care 
whether a wrong is voted up or voted down. He may say he don't 
care whether an indifferent thing is voted up or down, but he 
must logically have a choice between a right thing and a wrong 
thing. He contends that whatever community wants slaves has 
a right to have them. So they have, if it is not a wrong. But 
if it is a wrong, he cannot say people have a right to do wrong. 
He says that upon the score of equality, slaves should be allowed 
to go in a new Territory, like other property. This is strictly 
logical if there is no difference between it and other property. 
If it and other property are equal, his argument is entirely 
logical. But if you insist that one is wrong and the other right, 
there is no use to institute a comparison between right and 
wrong. You may turn over everything in the Democratic policy 
from beginning to end, whether in the shape it takes on the 
statute book, in the shape it takes in the Dred Scott decision, in 
the shape it takes in conversation, or the shape it takes in short 
maxim-like arguments, — it everywhere carefully excludes the 
idea that there is anything wrong in it. 

That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue 
in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and 
myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these 
two principles — right and wrong — throughout the world. They 
are the two principles that have stood face to face from the begin- 
ning of time, and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the 
common right of humanity, and the other the divine right of kings. 
It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It 
is the same spirit that says, "You work and toil and earn bread, 
and I'll eat it." No matter in what shape it comes, whether 
from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of 
his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one 
race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the 
same tyrannical principle. I was glad to express my gratitude 
at Quincy, and I re-express it here, to Judge Douglas, — that he 
looks to no end of the institution of slavery. That will help the 
people to see where the struggle really is. It will hereafter 
place with us all men who really do wish the wrong may have ^ 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 355 

an end. And whenever we can get rid of the fog which obscures 
the real question, when we can get Judge Douglas and his 
friends to avow a policy looking to its perpetuation, — we can get 
out from among that class of men and bring them to the side of those 
who treat it as a wrong. Then there will soon be an end of it, 
and that end will be its " ultimate extinction." Whenever the 
issue can be distinctly made, and all extraneous matter thrown 
out so that men can fairly see the real difference between the 
parties, this controversy will soon be settled, and it will be done 
peaceably too. There will be no war, no violence. It will be 
placed again where the wisest and best men of the world 
placed it. Brooks of South Carolina once declared that when 
this Constitution was framed, its framers did not look to the 
institution existing until this day. When he said this, I think he 
stated a fact that is fully borne out by the history of the times. 
But he also said they were better and wiser men than the 
men of these days ; 3'et the men of these daj^s had experience 
which they had not, and by the invention of the cotton-gin it 
became a necessity in this country that slavery should be per- 
petual. I now say that, willingly or unwillingly, purposely or 
without purpose. Judge Douglas has been the most prominent 
instrument in changing the position of the institution of slavery 
which the fathers of the government expected to come to an end 
ere this, — and ^tciting- it upon Brooks's cotton-gin basis; placing' 
it where he openly confesses he has no desire there shall ever be 
an end of it. 

I understand I have ten minutes yet. I will employ it in 
saying something about this argument Judge Douglas uses, while 
he sustains the Dred Scott decision, that the people of the Ter- 
ritories can still somehow exclude slavery. The first thing I ask 
attention to is the fact that Judge Douglas constantly said, before 
the decision, that whether they could or not, -was a question for 
the Su-pre^ne Court. But after the court had made the decision 
he virtually says it is not a question for the Supreme Court, but 
for the people. And how is it he tells us they can exclude it? 
He says it needs " police regulations," and that admits of "un- 
friendly legislation." Although it is a right established by the 
Constitution of the United States to take a slave into a Territory 
of the United States and hold him as property, yet unless the 
Territorial Legislature will give friendly legislation, and, more 
especially, if they adopt unfriendly legislation, they can prac- 
tically exclude him. Now, without meeting this proposition as 
a matter of fact, I pass to consider the real constitutional obli- 
gation. Let me take the gentleman who looks me in the face 
before me, and let us suppose that he is a member of the Terri- 
torial Legislature. The first thing he will do will be to swear 
that he will support the Constitution of the United States. His 



356 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

neighbor by his side in the Territory has slaves and needs Ter- 
ritorial legislation to enable him to enjoy that constitutional right. 
Can he withhold the legislation which his neighbor needs for the 
enjoyment of a right which is fixed in his favor in the Consti- 
tution of the United States which he has sworn to support? 
Can he withhold it without violating his oath? And, more 
especially, can he pass unfriendly legislation to violate his oath? 
Why, this is a monstrous sort of talk about the Constitution of 
the United States ! There has never been as outlandish or lazv- 
less a doctrine from the mouth of any res-pectable man on earthy 
I do not believe it is a constitutional right to hold slaves in a \ 
Territory of the United States. I believe the decision was im- 1 
properly made and I go for reversing it. Judge Douglas is^ 
furious against those who go for reversing a decision. But 
he is for legislating it out of all force while the law itself stands. 
I repeat that there has never been so monstrous a doctrine 
uttered from the mouth of a respectable man. 

I suppose most of us (I know it of myself) believe that the 
people of the Southern States are entitled to a Congressional 
Fugitive Slave law, — that is a right fixed in the Constitution. 
But it cannot be made available to them without Congressional 
legislation. In the Judge's language, it is a "barren right," 
which needs legislation before it can become efficient and valu- 
able to the persons to whom it is guaranteed. And as the right 
is constitutional, I agree that the legislation shall be granted to 
it, — and that not that we like the institution of slavery. We 
profess to have no taste for running and catching niggers, — at 
least, I profess no taste for that job at all. Why then do I yield 
support to a Fugitive Slave law? Because I do not understand 
that the Constitution, which guarantees that right, can be sup- 
ported without it. And if I believed that the right to hold a 
slave in a Territory was equally fixed in the Constitution with 
the right to reclaim fugitives, I should be bound to give it the 
legislation necessary to support it. I say that no man can deny 
his obligation to give the necessary legislation to support slavery 
in a Territor}', who believes it is a constitutional right to have it 
there. No man can, who does not give the Abolitionists an 
argument to deny the obligation enjoined by the Constitution to 
enact a Fugitive State law. Try it now. It is the strongest 
Abolition argument ever made. I sav if that Dred Scott deci- 
sion is correct, then the right to hold slaves in a Territor}^ is 
equally a constitutional right with the right of a slaveholder to 
have his runaway returned. No one can show the distinction 
between them. The one is express, so that we cannot deny it. 
The other is construed to be in the Constitution, so that he who 
believes the decision to be correct believes in the right. And 
the man who argues that by unfriendly legislation, in spite of 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 357 

that constitutional right, slavery may be driven from the Terri- 
tories, cannot avoid furnishing an argument by which Abolition- 
ists may deny the obligation to return fugitives, and claim the 
power to pass laws unfriendly to the right of the slaveholder to 
reclaim his fugitive. I do not know how such an argument may 
strike a popular assembly like this, but I defy anybody to go 
before a body of men whose minds are educated to estimating 
evidence and reasoning, and show that there is an iota of 
difference between the constitutional right to reclaim a fugitive, 
and the constitutional right to hold a slave, in a Territory, pro- 
vided this Dred Scott decision is correct. I defy any man to 
make an argument that will justify unfriendly legislation to 
deprive a slaveholder of his right to hold his slave in a Territory, 
that will not equally, in all its length, breadth, and thickness, 
furnish an argument for nullifying the Fugitive Slave law. 
Why, there is not such an Abolitionist in the nation as Douglas, 
after all. 



MR. DOUGLAS'S REPLY. 

Mr. Lincoln has concluded his remarks by saying that 
there is not such an Abolitionist as I am in all America. If he 
could make the Abolitionists of Illinois believe that, he would 
not have much show for the Senate. Let him make the Aboli- 
tionists believe the truth of that statement, and his political back 
is broken. 

His first criticism upon me is the expression of his hope 
that the war of the Administration will be prosecuted against me 
and the Democratic party of this State with vigor. He wants 
that war prosecuted with vigor ; I have no doubt of it. His 
hopes of success and the hopes of his party depend solely upon 
it. They have no chance of destroying the Democracy of this 
State except by the aid of Federal patronage. He has all the 
Federal office-holders here as his allies, running separate tickets 
against the Democracy to divide the party, although the leaders 
all intend to vote directly the Abolition ticket, and only leave the 
greenhorns to vote this separate ticket who refuse to go into the 
Abolition camp. There is something really refreshing in the thought 
that Mr. Lincoln is in favor of prosecuting one war vigorously. It 
is the first war that I ever knew him to be in favor of prosecut- 
ing. It is the first war that I ever knew him to believe to be just 
or constitutional. When the Mexican war was being waged, 
and the American army was surrounded by the enemy in Mexico, 
he thought that war was unconstitutional, unnecessary, and 
unjust. He thought it was not commenced on the right s-pot . 

When I made an incidental allusion of that kind in the 



358 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

joint discussion over at Charleston some weeks ago, Lincoln, in 
replying, said that I, Douglas, had charged him with voting 
against supplies for the Mexican war, and then he reared up, 
full length, and swore that he never voted against the supplies ; 
that it was a slander ; and caught hold of Ficklin, who sat on 
the stand, and said, "Here, Ficklin, tell the people that it is a 
lie." Well, Ficklin, who had served in Congress with him, 
stood up and told them all that he recollected about it. It was 
that when George Ashmun, of Massachusetts, brought forward 
a resolution declaring the war unconstitutional, unnecessary, and 
unjust, that Lincoln had voted for it. "Yes," said Lincoln, "I 
did." Thus he confessed that he voted that the war was wrong, 
■''that our country was in the wrong, and consequently that the 
Mexicans were in the right ; but charged that I had slandered 
him by saying that he voted against the supplies. I never 
charged him with voting against the supplies in my life, because 
I knew that he was not in Congress when they were voted. The 
war was commenced on the 13th day of May, 1846, and on that 
day we appropriated in Congress ten millions of dollars and fifty 
thousand men to prosecute it. During the same session we voted 
more men and more money, and at the next session we voted 
more men and more money, so that by the time Mr. Lincoln 
entered Congress we had enough men and enough money to 
carry on the war, and had no occasion to vote for any more. 
When he got into the House, being opposed to the war, and not 
being able to stop the supplies, because they had all gone for- 
ward, all he could do was to follow the lead of Corwin, and prove 
that the war was not begun on the right spot, and that it was 
unconstitutional, unnecessary, and wrong. Remember, too, that 
this he did after the war had been begun. It is one thing to be 
opposed to the declaration of a war, another and very dif- 
ferent thing to take sides with the enemy against your own 
country after the war has been commenced. Our army was in 
Mexico at the time, many battles had been fought ; our citizens, 
who were defending the honor of their country's flag, were sur- 
rounded by the daggers, the guns, and the poison of the enemy. 
Then it was that Corwin made his speech in which he declared 
that the American soldiers ought to be welcomed by the Mex- 
icans with bloody hands and hospitable graves ; then it was tha 
Ashmun and Lincoln voted in the House of Representatives tha 
the war was unconstitutional and unjust ; and Ashmun's resolu- 
tion, Corwin's speech, and Lincoln's vote were sent to Mexico 
and read at the head of the Mexican army, to prove to them 
that there was a Mexican party in the Congress of the United 
States who were doing all in their power to aid them. That a 
man who takes sides with the common enemy against his own 
country in time of war should rejoice in a war being made on 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 359 

me now, is very natural. And, in my opinion, no other kind of 
a man would rejoice in it. 

Mr. Lincoln has told you a great deal to-day about his being 
an old line Clay Whig. Bear in mind that there are a great 
many old Clay Whigs down in this region. It is more agreeable, 
therefore, for him to talk about the old Clay Whig party than it 
is for him to talk Abolitionism. We did not hear much about 
the old Clay Whig party up in the Abolition districts. How 
much of an old line Henry Clay Whig was he? Have you read 
General Singleton's speech at Jacksonville? You know that 
General Singleton was for twenty-five years the confidential 
friend of Henry Clay in Illinois, and he testified that in 1847, 
when the Constitutional Convention of this State was in session, 
the Whig members were invited to a Whig caucus at the house 
of Mr. Lincoln's brother-in-law, where Mr. Lincoln proposed 
to throw Henry Clay overboard and take up General Taylor in 
his place, giving as his reason that if the Whigs did not take up 
General Taylor, the Democrats would. Singleton testifies that 
Lincoln in that speech urged as another reason for throwing 
Henry Clay overboard, that the Whigs had fought long enough 
for principle, and ought to begin to fight for success. Singleton 
also testifies that Lincoln's speech did have the eflect of cutting 
Clay's throat, and that he (Singleton) and others withdrew from 
the caucus in indignation. He further states that when they got 
to Philadelphia to attend the National Convention of the Whig 
party, that Lincoln was there, the bitter and deadly enemy of 
Clay, and that he tried to keep him (Singleton) out of the Con- 
vention because he insisted on voting for Clay, and Lincoln was 
determined to have Taylor. Singleton says that Lincoln re- 
joiced with very great joy when he found the mangled remains' 
of the murdered Whig statesman lying cold before him. Now, 
Mr. Lincoln tells you that he is an old line Clay Whig ! General 
Singleton testifies to the facts I have narrated, in a public speech 
which has been printed and circulated broadcast over the State 
for weeks, yet not a lisp have we heard from Mr. Lincoln on the 
subject, except that he is an old Clay Whig. 

What part of Henry Clay's policy did Lincoln ever advo- 
cate? He was in Congress in 1848-9, when the Wilmot Proviso 
warfare disturbed the peace and harmony of the country, until it 
shook the foundation of the Republic from its centre to its cir- 
cumference. It was that agitation that brought Clay forth from 
his retirement at Ashland again to occupy his seat in the Senate 
of the United States, to see if he could not, by his great wisdom 
and experience, and the renown of his name, do something to 
restore peace and quiet to a disturbed country. Who got up that 
sectional strife that Clay had to be called upon to quell ? I have 
heard Lincoln boast that he voted forty-two times for the Wilmot 



360 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Proviso, and that he would have voted as many times more if he 
could. Lincoln is the man, in connection with Seward, Chase, 
Giddings, and other Abolitionists, who got up that strife that I 
helped Clay to put down. Henry Clay came back to the Senate 
in 1849, and saw that he must do something to restore peace to 
the country. The Union Whigs and the Union Democrats wel- 
comed him, the moment he arrived, as the man for the occasion. 
We believed that he, of all men on earth, had been preserved by 
Divine Providence to guide vis out of our difficulties, and we 
Democrats rallied under Clay then, as you Whigs in Nullification 
time rallied under the banner of old Jackson, forgetting party 
when the country was in danger, in order that we might have a 
country first, and parties afterward. 

And this reminds me that Mr. Lincoln told you that the 
slavery question was the only thing that ever disturbed the peace 
and harmony of the Union. Did not Nullification once raise its 
head and disturb the peace of this Union in 1832? Was that the 
slavery question, Mr. Lincoln? Did not disunion raise its mon- 
ster head during the last war with Great Britain? Was that the 
slavery question, Mr. Lincoln? The peace of this country has 
been disturbed three times, once during the war with Great 
Britain, once on the tariff question, and once on the slavery ques- 
tion. His argument, therefore, that slavery is the only question 
that has ever created dissension in the Union falls to the ground. 
It is true that agitators are enabled now to use this slavery ques- 
tion for the purpose of sectional strife. He admits that in regard 
to all things else, the principle that I advocate, making each 
State and Territory free to decide for itself, ought to prevail. 
He instances the cranberry laws and the oyster laws, and he 
might have gone through the whole list with the same effect. I 
say that all these laws are local and domestic, and that local and 
domestic concerns should be left to each State and each Terri- 
tory to manage for itself. If agitators would acquiesce in that 
principle, there never would be any danger to the peace and 
harmony of the Union. 

Mr. Lincoln tries to avoid the main issue by attacking the 
truth of my proposition, that our fathers made this government 
divided into Free and Slave States, recognizing the right of each 
to decide all its local questions for itself. Did they not thus 
make it? It is true that they did not establish slavery in any of 
the States, or abolish it in any of them ; but finding thirteen 
States, twelve of which were slave and one free, they agreed to 
form a government uniting them together as they stood, divided 
into Free and Slave States, and to guarantee forever to each 
State the right to do as it pleased on the slaver}^ question. 
Having thus made the government, and conferred this right upon 
each State forever, I assert that this government can exist as they 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 361 

made it, divided into Free and Slave States, if any one State 
chooses to retain slavery. He says that he looks forward to a 
time when slavery shall be abolished everywhere. I look for- 
ward to a time when each State shall be allowed to do as it. 
pleases. If it chooses to keep slavery forever, it is not my busi- 
ness, but its own ; if it chooses to abolish slavery, it is its own 
business, — not mine. I care more for the great principle of self- 
government, the right of the people to rule, than I do for all the 
negroes in Christendom. I would not endanger the perpetuity 
of this Union, I would not blot out the great inalienable rights 
of the white men, for all the negroes that ever existed. Hence, 
I say, let us maintain this government on the principles that our 
fathers made it, recognizing the right of each State to keep 
slavery as long as its people determine, or to abolish it when they 
please. But Mr. Lincoln says that when our fathers made this 
government they did not look forward to the state of things now 
existing, and therefore he thinks the doctrine was wrong ; and 
he quotes Brooks of South Carolina to prove that our fathers then 
thought that probably slavery would be abolished by each State 
acting for itself before this time. Suppose they did ; suppose 
they did not foresee what has occurred, — does that change the 
principles of our government? They did not probably foresee the 
telegraph that transmits intelligence by lightning, nor did they 
foresee the railroads that now form the bonds of union between 
the different States, or the thousand mechanical inventions that 
have elevated mankind. But do these things change the princi- 
ples of the government? Our fathers, I say, made this govern- 
ment on the principle of the right of each State to do as it 
pleases in its own domestic affairs, subject to the Constitution, 
and allowed the people of each to apply to every new change of 
circumstances such remedy as they may see lit to improve their 
condition. This right they have for all time to come. 

Mr. Lincoln went on to tell you that he does not at all desire 
to interfere with slavery in the States where it exists, nor does 
his party. I expected him to say that down here. Let me ask 
him, then, how he expects to put slavery in the course of ultimate 
extinction everywhere, if he does not intend to interfere with it in 
the States where it exists? He says that he will prohibit it in all 
Territories, and the inference is, then, that unless they make 
Free States out of them he will keep them out of the Union ; for, 
mark you, he did not say whether or not he would vote to admit 
Kansas with slavery or not, as her people might apply (he forgot 
that, as usual, etc.) ; he did not say whether or not he was in 
favor of bringing the Territories now in existence into the Union 
on the principle of Clay's Compromise Measures on the slavery 
question. I told you that he would not. His idea is that he will 
prohibit slavery in all the Territories, and thus force them all to 

47 



362 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

become Free States, surrounding the Slave States with a cordon 
of Free States, and hemming them in, keeping the slaves con- 
fined to their present limits whilst they go on multiplying, until 
the soil on which they live will no longer feed them, and he will 
thus be able to put slavery in a course of ultimate extinction by 
starvation. He will extinguish slavery in the Southern States as 
the French general exterminated the Algerines when he smoked 
them out. He is going to extinguish slavery by surrounding the 
Slave States, hemming in the slaves, and starving them out of 
existence, as you smoke a fox out of his hole. He intends to do 
that in the name of humanity and Christianity, in order that we 
may get rid of the terrible crime and sin entailed upon our 
fathers of holding slaves. Mr. Lincoln makes out that line of 
policy, and appeals to the moral sense of justice and to the 
Christian feeling of the community to sustain him. He says that 
any man who holds to the contrary doctrine is in the position of 
the king who claimed to govern by divine right. Let us examine 
for a moment and see what principle it was that overthrew the 
divine right of George the Third to govern us. Did not these 
Colonies rebel because the British Parliament had no right to 
pass laws concerning our property and domestic and private 
institutions without our consent? We demanded that the British 
Government should not pass such laws unless they gave us 
representation in the body passing them ; and this the British 
Government insisting on doing, we went to war, on the principle 
that the Home Government should not control and govern distant 
colonies without giving them a representation. Now, Mr. Lincoln 
proposes to govern the Territories without giving them a repre- 
sentation, and calls on Congress to pass laws controlling their 
property and domestic concerns without their consent and against 
their will. Thus, he asserts for his party the identical principle 
asserted by George HI. and the Tories of the Revolution. 

I ask you to look into these things, and then tell me whether 
the Democracy or the Abolitionists are right. I hold that the 
people of a Territory, like those of a State (I use the language 
of Mr. Buchanan in his Letter of Acceptance), have the right to 
decide for themselves whether slavery shall or shall not exist 
within their limits. The point upon which Chief Justice Taney 
expresses his opinion is simply this, that slaves, being property, 
stand on an equal footing with other property, and consequently 
that the owner has the same right to carry that property into a 
Territory that he has any other, subject to the same conditions. 
Suppose that one of your merchants was to take fifty or one 
hundred thousand dollars' worth of liquors to Kansas. He has 
a right to go there, under that decision ; but when he gets there 
he finds the Maine liquor law in force, and what can he do with 
his property after he gets it there? He cannot sell it, he cannot 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 363 

use it ; it is subject to the local law, and that law is against him, 
and the best thing he can do with it is to bring it back into 
Missouri or Illinois and sell it. If you take negroes to Kansas, 
as Colonel Jefferson Davis said in his Bangor speech, from which 
I have quoted to-day, you must take them there subject to the 
local law. If the people want the institution of slavery, they 
will protect and encourage it ; but if they do not want it, they 
will withhold that protection, and the absence of local legislation 
protecting slavery excludes it as completely as a positive prohi- 
bition. You slaveholders of Missouri might as well understand 
what you know practically, that you cannot carry slavery where 
the people do not want it. All you have a right to ask is that 
the people shall do as they please : if they want slavery, let them 
have it ; if they do not want it, allow them to refuse to encour- 
age it. 

yiy friends, if, as I have said before, we will only live up to 
this great fundamental principle, there will be peace between the 
North and the South. Mr. Lincoln admits that, under the Con- 
stitution, on all domestic questions, except slavery, we ought not 
to interfere with the people of each State. What right have we 
to interfere with slavery any more than we have to interfere 
with any other question ? He says that this slavery question is 
now the bone of contention. Wh}^? Simply because agitators 
have combined in all the Free States to make war upon it. Sup- 
pose the agitators in the States should combine in one half of the 
Union to make war upon the railroad system of the other half? 
They would thus be driven to the same sectional strife. Suppose 
one section makes war upon any other peculiar institution of the 
opposite section, and the same strife is produced. The only 
remedy and safety is that we shall stand by the Constitution as 
our fathers made it, obey the laws as they are passed, while they 
stand the proper test, and sustain the decisions of the Supreme 
Court and the constituted authorities. 



SPEECH OF HON. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 

At Columbus, Ohio, September, 1859. 

Fellows-Citizens of the State of Ohio : I cannot fail 
to remember that I appear for the first time before an audience 
in this now great State, — an audience that is accustomed to hear 
such speakers as Corwin, and Chase, and Wade, and many other 
renowned men ; and, remembering this, I feel that it will be well 
for you, as for me, that you should not raise your expectations to 
that standard to which you would have been justified in raising 



364 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

them had one of these distinguished men appeared before you. 
You would perhaps be only preparing a disappointment for your- 
selves, and, as a consequence of your disappointment, mortification 
to me. I hope, therefore, that you will commence with very 
moderate expectations ; and perhaps, if you will give me your 
attention, I shall be able to interest you to a moderate degree. 

Appearing here for the first time in my life, I have been 
somewhat embarrassed for a topic by way of introduction to my 
speech ; but I have been relieved from that embarrassment by an 
introduction which the " Ohio Statesman" newspaper gave me 
this morning. In this paper I have read an article, in which, 
among other statements, I find the following : — 

" In debating with Senator Douglas during the memorable con- 
test of last fall, Mr. Lincoln declared in favor of negro suffrage, and 
attempted to defend that vile conception against the Little Giant." 

I mention this now, at the opening of my remarks, for the 
purpose of making three comments upon it. The first I have 
already announced, — it furnishes me an introductory topic ; the 
second is to show that the gentleman is mistaken ; thirdly, to give 
him an opportunity to correct it. 

In the first place, in regard to this matter being a mistake. I 
have found that it is not entirely safe, when one is misrepresented 
under his very nose, to allow the misrepresentation to go uncontra- 
dicted. I therefore propose, here at the outset, not only to say 
that this is a misrepresentation, but to show conclusively that it 
is so ; and you will bear with me while I read a couple of extracts 
from that very "memorable" debate with Judge Douglas last 
year, to which this newspaper refers. In the first pitched battle 
which Senator Douglas and myself had, at the town of Ottawa, 
I used the language which I will now read. Having been 
previously reading an extract, I continued as follows : — 

" Now, gentlemen, I don't want to read at any greater length, 
but this is the true complexion of all I have ever said in regard to the 
institution of slavery and the black race. This is the whole of it ; 
and anything that argues me into his idea of perfect social and political 
equality with the negro, is but a specious and fantastic arrangement 
of words, by which a man can prove a horse-chestnut to be a chest- 
nut horse. I will say here, while upon this subject, that I have no 
purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of 
slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right 
to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. I have no purpose to in- 
troduce political and social equality between the white and the black 
races. There is a physical difference between the two which, in my 
judgment, will probably forbid their ever living together upon the 
footing of perfect equality ; and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity 
tiiat there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in 
favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position. I 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 365 

have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that, notwith- 
standing all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not 
entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of In- 
dependence, — the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 
I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree 
with Judge Douglas, he is not my equal in many respects, — certainly 
not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowments. But 
in the right to eat the bread, without leave of anybody else, which his 
own hand earns, he is ?ny equal, and the equal of Judge Douglas, 
and the equal of every living man. 

Upon a subsequent occasion, when the reason for making a 
statement like this recurred, I said : — 

" While I was at the hotel to-day an elderly gentleman called 
upon me to know whether I was really in favor of producing perfect 
equality between the negroes and white people. While I had 
not proposed to myself on this occasion to say much on that subject, 
yet, as the question was asked me, I thought I would occupy perhaps 
five minutes in saying something in regard to it. I will say, then, 
that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any 
way the social and political equality of the white and black races ; 
that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors 
of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold ofhce, or intermarry with 
the white people ; and I will say in addition to this that there is a 
physical difference between the white and black races which I believe 
will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social 
and political equality. And inasmuch as they can not so live, while 
they do remain together there must be the position of superior and in- 
ferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the 
superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occa- 
sion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the 
superior position, the negro should be denied everything. I do not 
understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave, 
I must necessarily want her for a wife. My understanding is that I 
can just let her alone. I am now in my fiftieth year, and I certainly 
never have had a black woman for either a slave or a wife. So it seems 
to me quite possible for us to get along without making either slaves or 
wives of negroes. I will add to this that I have never seen, to my 
knowledge, a man, woman, or child, who was in favor of producing 
perfect equality, social and political, between negroes and white men. 
I recollect of but one distinguished instance that I ever heard of so 
frequently as to be satisfied of its correctness, — and that is the case of 
Judge Douglas's old friend. Colonel Richard M. Johnson, I will 
also add to the remarks I have made (for I am not going to enter at 
large upon this subject), that I have never had the least apprehension 
that I or my friends would marry negroes, if there was no law to 
keep them from it ; but as Judge Douglas and his friends seem to be 
in great apprehension that they might, if there were no law to keep 
them from it, I give him the most solemn pledge that I will to the 
very last stand by the law of the State which forbids the marrying 
of white people with negroes." 



366 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

There, my friends, you have briefly what I have, upon former 
occasions, said upon this subject to which this newspaper, to the 
extent of its ability, has drawn the public attention. In it you 
not only perceive, as a probability, that in that contest I did not 
at any time say I was in favor of negro suffrage, but the absolute 
proof that twice — once substantially, and once expressly — I 
declared against it. Having shown you this, there remains but 
a word of comment upon that newspaper article. It is this : that 
I presume the editor of that paper is an honest and truth-loving 
man, and that he will be greatly obliged to me for furnishing 
him thus early an opportunity to correct the misrepresentation he 
has made, before it has run so long that malicious people can 
call him a liar. 

The Giant himself has been here recently. I have seen a 
brief report of his speech. If it were otherwise unpleasant to 
me to introduce the subject of the negro as a topic for discussion, 
I might be somewhat relieved by the fact that he dealt exclusively 
in that subject while he was here. I shall, therefore, without 
much hesitation or diffidence, enter upon this subject. 

The American people, on the first day of January, 1854, 
found the African slave-trade prohibited by a law of Congress. 
In a majority of the States of this Union, they found African 
slavery, or any other sort of slavery, prohibited by State consti- 
tutions. They also found a law existing, supposed to be valid, 
by which slavery was excluded from almost all the territory the 
United States then owned. This was the condition of the coun- 
try, with reference to the institution of slavery, on the first 
of January, 1854. A few days after that, a bill was introduced 
into Congress, which ran through its regular course in the two 
branches of the National Legislature, and finally passed into a 
law in the month of May, by which the Act of Congress prohib- 
iting slavery from going into the Territories of the United States 
was repealed. In connection with the law itself, and, in fact, in 
the terms of the law, the then existing prohibition was not only 
repealed, but there was a declaration of a purpose on the part of 
Congress never thereafter to exercise any power that they might 
have, real or supposed, to prohibit the extension or spread of 
slavery. This was a very great change ; for the law thus re- 
pealed was of more than thirty years' standing. Following 
rapidly upon the heels of this action of Congress, a decision of 
the Supreme Court is made, by which it is declared that Congress, 
if it desires to prohibit the spread of slavery into the Territories, 
has no constitutional power to do so. Not only so, but that de- 
cision lays down principles which, if pushed to their logical 
conclusion, — I say pushed to their logical conclusion, — would 
decide that the constitutions of Free States, forbidding slavery, 
are themselves unconstitutional. Mark me, I do not say the 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 367 

Judge said this, and let no man say I affirm the Judge used these 
words ; but I only say it is my opinion that what they did say, if 
pressed to its logical conclusion, will inevitably result thus. 

Looking at these things, the Republican party, as I under- 
stand its principles and policy, believe that there is great danger 
of the institution of slavery being spread out and extended until 
it is ultimately made alike lawful in all the States of this Union ; 
so believing, to prevent that incidental and ultimate consumma- 
tion is the original and chief purpose of the Republican organ- 
ization. I say " chief purpose " of the Republican organization ; 
for it is certainly true that if the National House shall fall into 
the hands of the Republicans, they will have to attend to all the 
other matters of National House-keeping, as well as this. The 
chief and real purpose of the Republican party is eminently con- 
servative. It proposes nothing save and except to restore this 
government to its original tone in regard to this element of 
slavery, and there to maintain it, looking for no further change 
in reference to it than that which the original framers of the 
Government themselves expected and looked forward to. 

The chief danger to this purpose of the Republican party is 
not just now the revival of the African slave-trade, or the passage 
of a Congressional slave-code, or the declaring of a second Dred 
Scott decision, making slavery lawful in all the States. These 
are not pressing us just now. They are not quite ready yet. 
The authors of these measures know that we are too strong for 
them ; but they will be upon us in due time, and we will be 
grappling with them hand to hand, if they are not now headed 
off. They are not now the chief danger to the purpose of the 
Republican organization ; but the most imminent danger that 
now threatens that purpose is that insidious Douglas Popular 
Sovereignty. This is the miner and supper. While it does not 
propose to revive the African slave-trade, nor to pass a slave- 
code, nor to make a second Dred Scott decision, it is preparing 
us for the onslaught and charge of these ultimate enemies when 
they shall be ready to come on, and the word of command for 
them to advance shall be given. I say this " Douglas Popular 
Sovereignty ;" for there is a broad distinction, as I now under- 
stand it, between that article and a genuine Popular Sovereignty. 
I believe there is a genuine popular sovereignty. I think a 
definition of "genuine popular sovereignty," in the abstract, 
would be about this : That each man shall do precisely as he 
pleases with himself, and with all those things which exclusively 
concern him. Applied to government, this principle would be, 
that a general government shall do all those things which pertain 
to it, and all the local governments shall do precisely as they 
please in respect to those matters which exclusively concern 
them. I understand that this government of the United States, 



368 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

under which we live, is based upon this principle ; and I am mis- 
understood if it is supposed that I have any war to make upon 
that principle. 

Now, what is Judge Douglas's Popular Sovereignt}' ? It is, 
as a principle, no other than that, if one man chooses to make a 
slave of another man, neither that other man nor anybody else 
has a right to object. Applied in government, as he seeks to 
apply it, it is this : If, in a new Territory into which a few people 
are beginning to enter for the purpose of making their homes, 
they choose to either exclude slavery from their limits or to 
establish it there, however one or the other may affect the persons 
to be enslaved, or the infinitely greater number of persons who 
are afterward to inhabit that Territory, or the other members of 
the families of communities, of which they are but an incipient 
member, or the general head of the family of States as parent of 
all, — however their action may affect one or the other of these, 
there is no power or right to interfere. That is Douglas's popu- 
lar sovereignty applied. 

He has a good deal of trouble with popular sovereignty. 
His explanations explanatory of explanations explained are 
interminable. The most lengthy, and, as I suppose, the most 
maturely considered of this long series of explanations is his 
great essay in " Harper's Magazine." I will not attempt to 
enter on any very thorough investigation of his argument as 
there made and presented. I will nevertheless occupy a good 
portion of your time here in drawing your attention to certain 
points in it. Such of you as may have read this document will 
have perceived that the Judge, early in the document quotes from 
two persons as belonging to the Republican party, without naming 
them, but who can readily be recognized as being Governor 
Seward of New York and myself. It is true that exactly fifteen 
months ago this day, I believe, I for the first time expressed a 
sentiment upon this subject, and in such a manner that it should 
get into print, that the public might see it beyond the circle ot 
my hearers ; and my expression of it at that time is the quota- 
tion that Judge Douglas makes. He has not made the quotation 
with accuracy, but justice to him requires me to say that it is 
sufiiciently accurate not to change the sense. 

The sense of that quotation condensed is this : that this 
slavery element is a durable element of discord among us, and 
that we shall probably not have perfect peace in this country with 
it until it either masters the free principle in our government, or 
is so far mastered by the free principle as for the public mind to 
rest in the belief that it is going to its end. This sentiment, which 
I now express in this way, was, at no great distance of time, 
perhaps in different language, and in connection with some col- 
lateral ideas, expressed by Governor Seward. Judge Douglas 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 369 

has been so much annoyed by the expression of that sentiment 
that he has constantly, I believe, in almost all his speeches since 
it was uttered, been referring to it. I find he alluded to it in 
his speech here, as well as in the copyright essay. I do not 
now enter upon this for the purpose of making an elaborate 
argument to show that we were right in the expression of that 
sentiment. In other words, I shall not stop to say all that might 
properly be said upon this point, but I only ask your attention to 
it for the purpose of making one or two points upon it. 

If you will read the copyright essay, you will discover that 
Judge Douglas himself says a controversy between the Ameri- 
can Colonies and the Government of Great Britain began on the 
slavery question in 1699, and continued from that time until the 
Revolution ; and, while he did not say so, we all know that it 
has continued with more or less violence ever since the Revolu- 
tion. 

Then we need not appeal to history, to the declarations of 
the framers of the government, but we know from Judge Douglas 
himself that slavery began to be an element of discord among 
the white people of this country as far back as 1699, or one hun- 
dred and sixty years ago, or five generations of men, — counting 
thirty years to a generation. Now, it would seem to me that it 
might have occurred to Judge Douglas, or anybody who had 
turned his attention to these facts, that there was something in 
the nature of that thing, slavery, somewhat durable for mischief 
and discord. 

There is another point I desire to make in regard to this 
matter, before I leave it. From the adoption of the Constitu- 
tion down to 1820 is the precise period of our history when we 
had comparative peace upon this question, — the precise period of 
time when we came nearer to having peace about it than any 
other time of that entire one hundred and sixty years in which 
he says it began, or of the eighty years of our own Constitution. 
Then it would be worth our while to stop and examine into the 
probable reason of our coming nearer to having peace then than 
at any other time. This was the precise period of time in which 
our fathers adopted, and during which they followed, a policy 
restricting the spread of slavery, and the whole Union was 
acquiescing in if. The whole country looked forward to the 
ultimate extinction of the institution. It was when a policy had 
been adopted, and was prevailing, which led all just and right- 
minded men to suppose that slavery was gradually coming to an 
end, and that they might be quiet about it, watching it as it 
expired. I think Judge Douglas might have perceived that too ; 
and whether he did or not, it is worth the attention of fair-minded 
men, here and elsewhere, to consider whether that is not the 
truth of the case. If he had looked at these two facts, — that this 

43 



370 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

matter has been an element of discord for one hundred and sixty 
years among this people, and that the only comparative peace 
we have had about it was when that policy prevailed in this 
government, which he now wars upon, — he might then, perhaps, 
have been brought to a more just appreciation of what I said 
fifteen months ago, — that "a house divided against itself cannot 
stand. I believe that this government cannot endure perma- 
nently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the house to 
fall, I do not expect the Union to dissolve ; but I do expect it 
will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the 
other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further 
spread of it, and place it where the public mind will rest in the 
belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates 
will push it forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the 
States, old as well as new. North as well as South." That was my 
sentiment at that time. In connection with it, I said : "We are 
now far into the fifth year since a policy was inaugurated with 
the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to 
slavery agitation. Under the operation of the policy, that agita- 
tion has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented." 
I now say to you here that we are advanced still farther into the 
sixth year since that policy of Judge Douglas — that Popular 
Sovereignty of his — for quieting the slavery question was made 
the national policy. Fifteen months more have been added 
since I uttered that sentiment ; and I call upon you and all other 
right-minded men to say whether that fifteen months have belied 
or corroborated my words. 

While I am here upon this subject, I cannot but express 
gratitude that this true view of this element of discord among us 
— as I believe it is — is attracting more and more attention. I do 
not believe that Governor Seward uttered that sentiment because 
I had done so before, but because he reflected upon this subject 
and saw the truth of it. Nor do I believe, because Governor 
Seward or I uttered it, that Mr. Hickman of Pennsylvania, in 
different language, since that time, has declared his belief in the 
utter antagonism which exists between the principles of liberty 
and slavery. You see we are multiplying. Now, while I am 
speaking of Hickman, let me say, I know but little about him. 
I have never seen him, and know scarcely anything about the 
man ; but I will say this much of him : Of all the anti-Lecomp- 
ton Democracy that have been brought to my notice, he alone 
has the true, genuine ring of the metal. And now, without 
indorsing anything else he has said, I will ask this audience to 
give three cheers for Hickman. [The audience responded with 
three rousing cheers for Hickman.] 

Another point in the copyright essay to which I would ask 
your attention is rather a feature to be extracted from the whole 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLA&. 371 

thing, than from any express declaration of it at any point. It 
is a general feature of that document, and, indeed, of all of 
Judge Douglas's discussions of this question, that the Territories 
of the United States and the States of this Union are exactly 
alike ; that there is no difference between them at all ; that 
the Constitution applies to the Territories precisely as it does to 
the States ; and that the United States Government, under the 
Constitution, may not do in a State what it may not do in a 
Territory, and what it must do in a State it must do in a Terri- 
tory. Gentlemen, is that a true view of the case? It is neces- 
sary for this squatter sovereignty, but is it true? 

Let us consider. What does it depend upon? It depends 
altogether upon the proposition that the States must, without the 
interference of the General Government, do all those things that 
pertain exclusively to themselves, — that are local in their nature, 
that have no connection with the General Government. After 
Judge Douglas has established this proposition, which nobody 
disputes or ever has disputed, he proceeds to assume, without 
proving it, that slavery is one of those little, unimportant, trivial 
matters which are of just about as much consequence as the 
question would be to me whether my neighbor should raise 
horned cattle or plant tobacco ; that there is no moral question 
about it, but that it is altogether a matter of dollars and cents ; 
that when a new Territory is opened for settlement, the first man 
who goes into it may plant there a thing which, like the Canada 
thistle or some other of those pests of the soil, cannot be dug out 
by the millions of men who will come thereafter ; that it is one of 
those little things that is so trivial in its nature that it has no effect 
upon anybody save the few men who first plant upon the soil ; 
that it is not a thing which in any way affects the family of com- 
munities composing these States, nor any way endangers the 
General Government. Judge Douglas ignores altogether the very 
well known fact that we have never had a serious menace to our 
political existence, except it sprang from this thing, which he 
chooses to regard as only upon a par with onions and potatoes. 

Turn it, and contemplate it in another view. He says that, 
according to his Popular Sovereignty, the General Government 
may give to the Territories governors, judges, marshals, secretaries, 
and all the other chief men to govern them, but they must not 
touch upon this other question. Why? The question of who 
shall be governor of a Territory for a year or two, and pass away, 
without his track being left upon the soil, or an act which he did 
for good or for evil being left behind, is a question of vast 
national magnitude ; it is so much opposed in its nature to locality 
that the nation itself must decide it : while this other matter of 
planting slavery upon a soil, — a thing which, once planted, 
cannot be eradicated by the succeeding millions who have as 



372 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

much right there as the first comers, or, if eradicated, not without 
infinite difficulty and a long struggle, — he considers the power to 
prohibit it as one of these little local, trivial things that the 
nation ought not to say a word about ; that it aflfects nobody 
save the few men who are there. 

Take these two things and consider them together, present 
the question of planting a State with the institution of slavery 
by the side of a question of who shall be Governor of Kansas 
for a year or two, and is there a man here, — is there a man on 
earth, — who would not say the governor question is the little 
one, and the slavery question is the great one? I ask any 
honest Democrat if the small, the local, and the trivial and 
temporary question is not. Who shall be governor? While the 
durable, the important, and the mischievous one is, Shall this 
soil be planted with slavery? 

This is an idea, I suppose, which has arisen in Judge 
Douglas's mind from his peculiar structure. I suppose the 
institution of slavery really looks small to him. He is so put up 
by nature that a lash upon his back would hurt him, but a lash 
upon anybody else's back does not hurt him. That is the build 
of the man, and consequently he looks upon the matter ot 
slavery in this unimportant light. 

Judge Douglas ought to remember, when he is endeavoring 
to force this policy upon the American people, that while he is 
put up in that way, a good many are not. He ought to remember 
that there was once in this country a man by the name of 
Thomas Jejfferson, supposed to be a Democrat, — a man whose 
principles and policy are not very prevalent amongst Democrats 
to-day, it is true ; but that man did not take exactly this view of 
the insignificance of the element of slavery which our friend 
Judge Douglas does. In contemplation of this thing, we all 
know he was led to exclaim, " I tremble for my country when I 
remember that God is just !" We know how he looked upon it 
when he thus expressed himself. There was danger to this 
country, — danger of the avenging justice of God, — in that little 
unimportant Popular Sovereignty question of Judge Douglas. 
He supposed there was a question of God's eternal justice 
wrapped up in the enslaving of any race of men, or any man, and 
that those who did so braved the arm of Jehovah ; that when a 
nation thus dared the Almighty, every friend of that nation had 
cause to dread his wrath. Choose ye between Jefferson and 
Douglas as to what is the true view of this element among us. 

There is another little difficulty about this matter of treating 
the Territories and States alike in all things, to which I ask your 
attention, and I shall leave this branch of the case. If there is 
no difference between them, why not make the Territories 
States at once? What is the reason that Kansas was not fit to 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 373 

come into the Union when it was organized into a Territory, in 
Judge Douglas's view ? Can any of you tell any reason why it 
should not have come into the Union at once? They are fit, as 
he thinks, to decide upon the slavery question, — the largest and 
most important with which they could possibly deal : what 
could they do by coming into the Union that they are not fit to 
do, according to his view, by staying out of it? Oh, they are 
not fit to sit in Congress and decide upon the rates of postage, 
or questions of ad valorem or specific duties on foreign goods, or 
live oak timber contracts, — they are not fit to decide these vastly 
important matters, which are national in their import, — but they 
are fit, " from the jump," to decide this little negro question. But, 
gentlemen, the case is too plain ; I occupy too much time on 
this head, and I pass on. 

Near the close of the copyright essay, the Judge, I think, 
comes very near kicking his own fat into the fire. I did not 
think, when I commenced these remarks, that I would read that 
article, but I now believe I will : — 

"This exposition of the history of these measures shows con- 
clusively that the authors of the Compromise Measures of 1850 and of 
the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, as well as the members of the Con- 
tinental Congress of 1774, and the founders of our system of govern- 
ment subsequent to the Revolution, regarded the people of the Ter- 
ritories and Colonies as political communities which were entitled to a 
free and exclusive power of legislation in their provisional legislatures, 
where their representation could alone be preserved, in all cases of 
taxation and internal polity." 

When the Judge saw that putting in the word "slavery" 
would contradict his own history, he put in what he knew would 
pass synonymous with it, — "internal polity." Whenever we find 
that in one of his speeches, the substitute is used in this manner ; 
and I can tell you the reason. It would be too bald a contradic- 
tion to say slavery ; but "internal polity" is a general phrase, 
which would pass in some quarters, and which he hopes will 
pass with the reading community for the same thing. 

"This right pertains to the people collectively, as a law- 
abiding and peaceful community, and not in the isolated individ- 
uals who may wander upon the public domain in violation of the 
law. It can only be exercised where there are inhabitants 
sufficient to constitute a government, and capable of performing 
its various functions and duties, — a fact to be ascertained and 
determined by" — who do you think? Judge Douglas says '*By 
Congress !" " Whether the number shall be fixed at ten, fifteen 
or twenty thousand inhabitants, does not affect the principle." 

Now, I have only a few comments to make. Popular Sov- 
ereignty, by his own words, does not pertain to the few persons 
who wander upon the public domain in violation of law. We 



374 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

have his words for that. When it does pertain to them, is when 
they are sufficient to be formed into an organized political com- 
munity, and he fixes the minimum for that at ten thousand, and 
the maximum at twenty thousand. Now, I would like to know 
what is to be done with the nine thousand? Are they all to be 
treated, until they are large enough to be organized into a polit- 
ical community, as wanderers upon the public land, in violation 
of law? And if so treated and driven out, at what point of time 
would there ever be ten thousand? If they were not driven out, 
but remained there as trespassers upon the public land in viola- 
tion of the law, can they establish slavery there? No; the 
Judge says Popular Sovereignty don't pertain to them then. Can 
they exclude it then? No; Popular Sovereignty don't pertain 
to them then. I would like to know, in the case covered by the 
essay, what condition the people of the Territory are in before 
they reach the number of ten thousand? 

But the main point I wish to ask attention to is, that the 
question as to when they shall have reached a sufficient number 
to be formed into a regular organized community is to be decided 
" by Congress." Judge Douglas says so. Well, gentlemen, that 
is about all we want. No, that is all the Southerners want. 
That is what all those who are for slavery want. They do not 
want Congress to prohibit slavery from coming into the new 
Territories, and they do not want Popular Sovereignty to hinder 
it ; and as Congress is to say when they are ready to be organ- 
ized, all that the South has to do is to get Congress to hold off. 
Let Congress hold off' until they are ready to be admitted as a 
State, and the South has all it wants in taking slavery into and 
planting it in all the Territories that we now have, or hereafter 
may have. In a word, the whole thing, at a dash of the pen, is 
at last put in the power of Congress ; for if they do not have 
this Popular Sovereignty until Congress organizes them, I ask if 
it at last does not come from Congress? If, at last, it amounts 
to anything at all. Congress gives it to them. I submit this 
rather for your reflection than for comment. After all that is 
said, at last, by a dash of the pen, everything that has gone be- 
fore is undone, and he puts the whole question under the control 
of Congress. After fighting through more than three hours, if 
you undertake to read it, he at last places the whole matter under 
the control of that power which he had been contending against, 
and arrives at a result directly contrary to what he had been 
laboring to do. He at last leaves the whole matter to the control 
of Congress. 

There are two main objects, as I understand it, of this Har- 
per's Magazine essay. One was to show, if possible, that the 
men of our Revolutionary times were in favor of his Popular 
Sovereignty, and the other was to show tKat the Dred Scott de- 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 375 

cision had not entirely squelched out this Popular Sovereignty. 
I do not propose, in regard to this argument drawn from the 
history of former times, to enter into a detailed examination of 
the historical statements he has made. I have the impression 
that they are inaccurate in a great many instances, — sometimes 
in positive statement, but very much more inaccurate by the 
suppression of statements that really belong to the history. But 
I do not propose to affirm that this is so to any very great extent, 
or to enter into a very minute examination of his historical state- 
ments. I avoid doing so upon this principle, — that if it were 
important for me to pass out of this lot in the least period of time 
possible, and I came to that fence, and saw by a calculation of 
my known strength and agility that I could clear it at a bound, 
it would be folly for me to stop and consider whether I could or 
not crawl through a crack. So I say of the whole history con- 
tained in his essay where he endeavored to link the men of the 
Revolution to Popular Sovereignty. It only requires an effort 
to leap out of it, a single bound to be entirely successful. If you 
read it over, you will find that he quotes here and there from 
documents of the Revolutionary times, tending to show that the 
people of the colonies were desirous of regulating their own 
concerns in their own way, that the British Government should 
not interfere ; that at one time they struggled with the British 
Government to be permitted to exclude the African slave-trade, 
— if not directly, to be permitted to exclude it indirectly, by tax- 
ation sufficient to discourage and destroy it. From these and 
many things of this sort. Judge Douglas argues that they were 
in favor of the people of our own Territories excluding slavery 
if they wanted to, or planting it there if they wanted to, doing 
just as they pleased from the time they settled upon the Territory. 
Now, however his history may apply ; and whatever of his ar- 
gument there may be that is sound and accurate or unsound and 
inaccurate, if we can find out what these men did themselves do 
upon this very question of slavery in the Territories, does it not 
end the whole thing? If, after all this labor and effort to show 
that the men of the Revolution were in favor of his Popular 
Sovereignty and his mode of dealing with slavery in the Terri- 
tories, we can show that these very men took hold of that subject, 
and dealt with it, we can see for ourselves how they dealt with 
it. It is not a matter of argument or inference, but we know 
what they thought about it. 

It is precisely upon that part of the history of the country 
that one important omission is made by Judge Douglas. He 
selects parts of the history of the United States upon the subject 
of slavery, and treats it as the whole, omitting from his historical 
sketch the legislation of Congress in regard to the admission of 
Missouri, by which the Missouri Compromise was established, 



376 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

and slavery excluded from a country half as large as the present 
United States. All this is left out of his history, and in nowise 
alluded to by him, so far as I can remember, save once, when he 
makes a remark, that upon his principle the Supreme Court were 
authorized to pronounce a decision that the Act called the Mis- 
souri Compromise was unconstitutional. All that history has 
been left out. But this part of the history of the country was 
not made by the men of the Revolution. 

There was another part of our politial history, made by the 
very men who were the actors in the Revolution, which has 
taken the name of the Ordinance of '87. Let me bring that 
history to 3'our attention. In 1784, I believe, this same Mr. Jef- 
ferson drew up an ordinance for the government of the country 
upon which we now stand, or, rather, a frame or draft of an ordi- 
nance for the government of this country, here in Ohio, our 
neighbors in Indiana, us who live in Illinois, our neighbors in 
Wisconsin and Michigan. In that ordinance, drawn up not only 
for the government of that Territory, but for the Territories 
south of the Ohio River, Mr. Jefferson expressly provided for 
the prohibition of slavery. Judge Douglas says, and perhaps is 
right, that that provision was lost from that ordinance. I believe 
that is true. When the vote was taken upon it, a majority 
of all present in the Congress of the Confederation voted for 
it ; but there were so many absentees that those voting for it 
did not make the clear majority necessary, and it was lost. 
But three years after that, the Congress of the Confederation 
were together again, and they adopted a new ordinance for the 
government of this Northwest Territory, not contemplating ter- 
ritory south of the river, for the States owning that territory had 
hitherto refrained from giving it to the General Government ; 
hence they made the ordinance to apply only to what the Gov- 
ernment owned. In that, the provision excluding slavery was 
inserted and -passed unanimously ^ or at any rate it passed and be- 
came a part of the law of the land. Under that ordinance we 
live. First here in Ohio you were a Territory, then an Enabling 
Act was passed, authorizing you to form a constitution and State 
Government, provided it was republican and not in conflict with 
the Ordinance of '87. When you framed your constitution and 
presented it for admission, I think you will find the legislation 
upon the subject will show that, " whereas you had formed a con- 
stitution that was republican, and not in conflict with the Ordi- 
nance of '87," therefore, you were admitted upon equal footing 
with the original States. The same process in a few 3^ears was 
gone through with in Indiana, and so with Illinois, and the same 
substantially with Michigan and Wisconsin. 

Not only did that Ordinance prevail, but it was constantly 
looked to whenever a step was taken by a new Territory to be- 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 377 

come a State. Congress always turned their attention to it, and 
in all their movements upon this subject they traced their course 
by that Ordinance of '87. When they admitted new States, they 
advertised them of this Ordinance, as a part of the legislation of 
the country. They did so because they had traced the Ordi- 
nance of '87 throughout the history of this country. Begin with 
the men of the Revolution, and go down for sixty entire years, 
and until the last scrap of that Territory comes into the Union in 
the form of the State of Wisconsin, everything was made to con- 
form with the Ordinance of '87, excluding slavery from that vast 
extent of country. 

I omitted to mention in the right place that the Constitution 
of the United States was in process of being framed when that 
Ordinance was made by the Congress of the Confederation ; and 
one of the first Acts of Congress itself, under the new Constitu- 
tion itself, was to give force to that Ordinance by putting power 
to carry it out in the hands of the new officers under the Consti- 
tution, in the place of the old ones, who had been legislated out 
of existence by the change in the Government from the Con- 
federation to the Constitution. Not only so, but I believe 
Indiana once or twice, if not Ohio, petitioned the General 
Government for the privilege of suspending that provision and 
allowing them to have slaves. A report made by Mr. Randolph, 
of Virginia, himself a slaveholder, was directly against it, and 
the action was to refuse them the privilege of violating the Ordi- 
nance of '87. 

This period of history, which I have run over briefly, is, I 
presume, as familiar to most of this assembly as any other part 
of the history of our country. I suppose that few of my hearers 
are not as familiar with that part of history as I am, and I only 
mention it to recall your attention to it at this time. And hence I 
ask how extraordinary a thing it is that a man who has occupied 
a position upon the floor of the Senate of the United States, who is 
now in his third term, and who looks to see the government of this 
whole country fall into his own hands, pretending to give a truth- 
ful and accurate history of the slavery question in this country, 
should so entirely ignore the whole of that portion of our history, 
— the most important of all. Is it not a most extraordinary 
spectacle that a man should stand up and ask for any confidence 
in his statements who sets out as he does with portions of history, 
calling upon the people to believe that it is a true and fair repre- 
sentation, when the leading part and controlling feature of the 
whole history is carefully suppressed? 

But the mere leaving out is not the most remarkable feature 
of this most remarkable essay. His proposition is to establish 
that the leading men of the Revolution were for his great principle 
of non-intervention by the government in the question of slavery 

49 



3'78 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

in the Territories, while history shows that they decided, in the 
cases actually brought before them, in exactly the contrary way, 
and he knows it. Not only did they so decide at that time, but 
they stuck to it during sixty years, through thick and thin, as 
long as there was one of the Revolutionary heroes upon the stage 
of political action. Through their whole course, from first to last, 
they clung to freedom. And now he asks the community to be- 
lieve that the men of the Revolution were in favor of his great 
principle, when we have the naked history that they themselves 
dealt with this very subject-matter of his principle, and utterly 
repudiated his principle, acting upon a precisely contrary ground, 
It is as impudent and absurd as if a prosecuting attorney should 
stand up before a jury and ask them to convict A as the murderer 
of B, while B was walking alive before them. 

I say, again, if Judge Douglas asserts that the men of the 
Revolution acted upon principles by which, to be consistent with 
themselves, they ought to have adopted his popular sovereignty, 
then, upon a consideration of his own argument, he had a right 
to make you believe that they understood the principles of 
government, but misapplied them, — that he has arisen to en- 
lighten the world as to the just application of this principle. He 
has a right to try to persuade you that he understands their 
principles better than they did, and, therefore, he will apply them 
now, not as they did, but as they ought to have done. He has a 
right to go before the community and try to convince them ot 
this, but he has no right to attempt to impose upon any one the 
belief that these men themselves approved of his great principle. 
There are two ways of establishing a proposition. One is by try- 
ing to demonstrate it upon reason, and the other is, to show that 
great men in former times have thought so and so, and thus to pass 
it by the weight of pure authority. Now, if Judge Douglas will 
demonstrate somehow that this is popular sovereignty, — the right 
of one man to make a slave of another, without any right in that 
other, or any one else to object, — demonstrate it as Euclid 
demonstrated propositions, — there is no objection. But when he 
comes forward, seeking to carry a principle by bringing to it the 
authority of men who themselves utterly repudiate that principle, 
I ask that he shall not be permitted to do it. 

I see, in the Judge's speech here, a short sentence in these 
words : " Our fathers, when they formed this government under 
which we live, understood this question just as well, and even 
better than, we do now." That is true ; I stick to that. I will 
stand by Judge Douglas in that to the bitter end. And now, 
Judge Douglas, come and stand by me, and truthfully show how 
they acted, understanding it better than we do. All I ask of you. 
Judge Douglas, is to stick to the proposition that the men of the 
Revolution understood this subject better than we do now, and 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 379 

with that better understanding they acted better than you are try- 
ing to act now. 

I wish to say something now in regard to the Dred Scott 
decision, as dealt with by Judge Douglas. In that "memorable 
debate" between Judge Douglas and myself, last year, the Judge 
thought fit to commence a process of catechising me, and at 
Freeport I answered his questions, and propounded some to him. 
Among others propounded to him was one that I have here now. 
The substance, as I remember it, is, " Can the people of a United 
States Territory, under the Dred Scott decision, in any lawful 
way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, ex- 
clude slavery from its limits, prior to the formation of a State 
constitution?" He answered that they could lawfully exclude 
slavery from the United States Territories, notwithstanding the 
Dred Scott decision. There was something about that answer 
that has probably been a trouble to the Judge ever since. 

The Dred Scott decision expressly gives every citizen of the 
United States a right to carry his slaves into the United States 
Territories. And now there was some inconsistency in saying 
that the decision was right, and saying, too, that the people of the 
Territory could lawfully drive slavery out again. When all the 
trash, the words, the collateral matter, was cleared away from it, all 
the chaff was fanned out of it, it was a bare absurdity, — no less than 
that a thing may be lawfully driven away from where it has a 
lawful right to be. Clear it of all the verbiage, and that is the 
naked truth of his proposition, — that a thing maj-^ be lawfully 
driven from the place where it has a lawful right to stay. Well, 
it was because the Judge couldn't help seeing this that he has 
had so much trouble with it ; and what I want to ask your 
especial attention to, just now, is to remind you, if you have not 
noticed the fact, that the Judge does not any longer say that the 
people can exclude slavery. He does not say so in the copy- 
right essay ; he did not say so in the speech that he made here ; 
and, so far as I know, since his re-election to the Senate he has 
never said, as he did at Freeport, that the people of the Terri- 
tories can exclude slavery. He desires that you, who wish the 
Territories to remain free, should believe that he stands by that 
position ; but he does not say it himself. He escapes to some 
extent the absurd position I have stated, by changing his lan- 
guage entirely. What he says now is something different in 
language ; and we will consider whether it is not different in 
sense too. It is now that the Dred Scott decision, or rather the 
Constitution under that decision, does not carry slavery into the 
Territories beyond the power of the people of the Territories to 
control it as other -pro-perty. He does not say the people can 
drive it out, but they can control it as other property. The lan- 
guage is different ; we should consider whether the sense ivS 



380 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

different. Driving a horse out of this lot is too plain a proposi- 
tion to be mistaken about ; it is putting him on the other side of 
the fence. Or it might be a sort of exclusion of him from the 
lot if you were to kill him and let the worms devour him; but 
neither of these things is the same as "controlling him as other 
property." That would be to feed him, to pamper him, to ride 
him, to use and abuse him, to make the most money out of him, 
"as other property ;" but please you, what do the men who are 
in favor of slavery want more than this? What do they really 
want, other than that slavery, being in the Territories, shall be 
controlled as other property? 

If they want anything else, I do not comprehend it. I ask 
your attention to this, first, for the purpose of pointing out the 
change of ground the Judge has made ; and, in the second place, 
the importance of the change, — that that change is not such as 
to give you gentlemen who want his popular sovereignty the 
power to exclude the institution or drive it out at all. I know 
the Judge sometimes squints at the argument that in controlling 
it as other property by unfriendly legislation they may control it 
to death, as you might, in the case of a horse, perhaps, feed him 
so lightly and ride him so much that he would die. But when 
3'ou come to legislative control, there is something more to be 
attended to. I have no doubt, myself, that if the Territories 
should undertake to control slave property as other property, — 
that is, control it in such a way that it would be the most 
valuable as property, and make it bear its just proportion in the 
way of burdens as property, — really deal with it as property, — 
the Supreme Court of the United States will say, "God speed 
you, and amen." But I undertake to give the opinion, at least, 
that if the Territories attempt by any direct legislation to drive 
the man with his slave out of the Territory, or to decide that his 
slave is free because of his being taken in there, or to tax him 
to such an extent that he cannot keep him there, the Supreme 
Court will unhesitatingly decide all such legislation unconstitu- 
tional, as long as that Supreme Court is constructed as the Dred 
Scott Supreme Court is. The first two things they have already 
decided, except that there is a little quibble among lawyers 
between the words "^/c/«" and "decision." They have already 
decided a negro cannot be made free by Territorial legislation. 

What is the Dred Scott decision? Judge Douglas labors to 
show that it is one thing, while I think it is altogether different. 
It is a long opinion, but it is all embodied in this short state- 
ment : "The Constitution of the United States forbids Congress 
to deprive a man of his property, without due process of law; 
the right of property in slaves is distinctly and expressly affirmed 
in that Constitution : therefore, if Congress shall undertake to 
say that a man's slave is no longer his slave when he crosses a 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 381 

certain line into a Territory, that is depriving him of his property 
without due process of law, and is unconstitutional." There is 
the whole Dred Scott decision. They add that if Congress can- 
not do so itself, Congress cannot confer any power to do so ; and 
hence any effort by the Territorial Legislature to do either of 
these things is absolutely decided against. It is a foregone con- 
clusion by that court. 

Now, as to this indirect mode by "unfriendly legislation," 
all lawyers here will readily understand that such a proposition 
cannot be tolerated for a moment, because a legislature cannot 
indirectly do that which it cannot accomplish directly. Then I 
say any legislation to control this property, as property, for its 
benefit as property, would be hailed by this Dred Scott Supreme 
Court, and full}"^ sustained ; but any legislation driving slave prop- 
erty out, or destroying it as property, directly or indirectly, will 
most assuredly, by that court, be held unconstitutional. 

Judge Douglas says if the Constitution carries slavery into 
the Territories, beyond the power of the people of the Territories 
to control it as other property, then it follows logically that every 
one who swears to support the Constitution of the United States 
must give that support to that property which it needs. And il 
the Constitution carries slavery into the Territories, beyond the 
power of the people to control it as other property, then it also 
carries it into the States, because the Constitution is the supreme 
law of the land. Now, gentlemen, if it were not for my exces- 
sive modesty, I would say that I told that very thing to Judge 
Douglas quite a year ago. This argument is here in print, and 
if it were not for my modesty, as I said, I might call your atten- 
tion to it. If you read it, you will find that I not only made that 
argument, but made it better than he has made it since. 

There is, however, this difference. I say now, and said 
then, there is no sort of question that the Supreme Court has 
decided that it is the right of the slave-holder to take his slave 
and hold him in the Territory ; and saying this, Judge Douglas 
himself admits the conclusion. He says if that is so, this conse- 
quence will follow ; and because this consequence would follow, 
his argument is, the decision cannot, therefore, be that way, — 
"that would spoil my Popular Sovereignty ; and it cannot be 
possible that this great principle has been squelched out in this 
extraordinary way. It might be, if it were not for the extraor- 
dinary consequences of spoiling my humbug. 

Another feature of the Judge's argument about the Dred 
Scott case is, an effort to show that that decision deals altogether 
in declarations of negatives ; that the Constitution does not 
affirm anything as expounded by the Dred Scott decision, but it 
only declares a want of power — a total absence of power — in 
reference to the Territories. It seems to be his purpose to make 



382 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the whole of that decision to result in a mere negative declaration 
of a want of power in Congress to do anything in relation to this 
matter in the Territories. I know the opinion of the Judges 
states that there is a total absence of power ; but that is, unfor- 
tunately, not all it states : for the Judges add that the right of 
property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the 
Constitution. It does not stop at saying that the right of prop- 
erty in a slave is recognized in the Constitution, is declared to 
exist somewhere in the Constitution, but says it is affirmed in the 
Constitution, Its language is equivalent to saying that it is 
embodied and so woven in that instrument that it cannot be 
detached without breaking the Constitution itself. In a word, it 
is part of the Constitution. 

Douglas is singularly unfortunate in his effort to make out 
that decision to be altogether negative, when the express 
language at the vital part is that this is distinctly affirmed in the 
Constitution. I think myself, and I repeat it here, that this de- 
cision does not merely carry slavery into the Territories, but by 
its logical conclusion it carries it into the States in which we 
live. One provision of that Constitution is, that it shall be the 
supreme law of the land, — I do not quote the language, — any 
constitution or law of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. 
This Dred Scott decision says that the right of property in a slave 
is affirmed in that Constitution which is the supreme law of the 
land, any State constitution or law notwithstanding. Then I say 
that to destroy a thing which is distinctly affirmed and supported 
by the supreme law of the land, even by a State constitution 
or law, is a violation of that supreme law, and there is no escape 
from it. In my judgment there is no avoiding that result, save 
that the American people shall see that constitutions are better 
construed than our Constitution is construed in that decision. 
They must take care that it is more faithfully and truly carried 
out than it is there expounded. 

I must hasten to a conclusion. Near the beginning of my 
remarks I said that this insidious Douglas Popular Sovereignty 
is the measure that now threatens the purpose of the Republican 
party to prevent slavery from being nationalized in the United 
States. I propose to ask your attention for a little while to some 
propositions in affirmance of that statement. Take it just as it 
stands, and apply it as a principle ; extend and apply that princi- 
ple elsewhere ; and consider where it will lead you. I now put 
this proposition, that Judge Douglas's Popular Sovereignty ap- 
plied will reopen the African slave-trade ; and I will demon- 
strate it by any variety of ways in which you can turn the sub- 
ject or look at it. 

The Judge says that the people of the Territories have the 
right, by his principle, to have slaves, if they want them. Then 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 383 

I say that the people in Georgia have the right to buy slaves in 
Africa, if they want them ; and I defy any man on earth to show 
any distinction between the two things, — to show that the one is 
either more wicked or more unlawful ; to show, on original 
principles, that one is better or worse than the other ; or to show, 
by the Constitution, that one differs a whit from the other. He 
will tell me, doubtless, that there is no constitutional provision 
against people taking slaves into the new Territories, and I tell 
him that there is equally no constitutional provision against buy- 
ing slaves in Africa. He will tell you that a people, in the exer- 
cise of popular sovereignty, ought to do as they please about that 
thing, and have slaves if they want them ; and I tell you that the 
people of Georgia are as much entitled to popular sovereignty 
and to buy slaves in Africa, if they want them, as the people of 
the Territory are to have slaves if they want them. I ask any 
man, dealing honestly with himself, to point out a distinction. 

I have recently seen a letter of Judge Douglas's in which, 
without stating that to be the object, he doubtless endeavors to 
make a distinction between the two. He says he is unalterably 
opposed to the repeal of the laws against the African slave-trade. 
And why ? He then seeks to give a reason that would not apply 
to his popular sovereignty in the Territories. What is that 
reason? "The abolition of the African slave-trade is a compro- 
mise of the Constitution !" I deny it. There is no truth in the 
proposition that the abolition of the African slave-trade is a com- 
promise of the Constitution. No man can put his finger on any- 
thing in the Constitution, or on the line of history, which shows 
it. It is a mere barren assertion, made simply for the purpose 
of getting up a distinction between the revival of the African 
slave-trade and his '* great principle." 

At the time the Constitution of the United States was adopted, 
it was expected that the slave-trade would be abolished. I should 
assert and insist upon that, if Judge Douglas denied it. But I 
know that it was equally expected that slavery would be ex- 
cluded from the Territories, and I can show by history that in 
regard to these two things public opinion was exactly alike, 
while in regard to positive action, there was more done in the 
Ordinance of '87 to resist the spread of slavery than was ever 
done to abolish the foreign slave-trade. Lest I be misunder- 
stood, I say again that at the time of the formation of the Con- 
stitution, public expectation was that the slave-trade would be 
abolished, but no more so than the spread of slavery in the Terri- 
tories should be restrained. They stand alike, except that in the 
Ordinance of '87 there was a mark left by public opinion, show- 
ing that it was more committed against the spread of slavery in 
the Territories than against the foreign slave-trade. 

Compromise ! What word of compromise was there about 



384 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

it? Why, the public sense was then in favor of the abolition of 
the slave-trade ; but there was at the time a very great com- 
mercial interest involved in it, and extensive capital in that branch 
of trade. There were doubtless the incipient stages of improve- 
ment in the South in the way of farming, dependent on the slave- 
trade, and they made a proposition to Congress to abolish the 
trade after allowing it twenty years, — a sufficient time for the 
capital and commerce engaged in it to be transferred to other 
channels. They made no provision that it should be abolished 
in twenty years ; I do not doubt that they expected it would be, 
but they made no bargain about it. The public sentiment left 
no doubt in the minds of any that it would be done away. I re- 
peat, there is nothing in the history of those times in favor of that 
matter being a compromise of the Constitution. It was the public 
exp^ jtation at the time, manifested in a thousand ways, that the 
spread of slavery should also be restricted. 

Then I say, if this principle is established, that there is no 
wrong in slavery, and whoever wants it has a right to have it, — 
is a matter of dollars and cents, a sort of question as to how they 
shall deal with brutes, — that between us and the negro here there 
is no sort of question, but that at the South the question is be- 
tween the negro and the crocodile. That is all. It is a mere 
matter of policy ; there is a perfect right, according to interest, 
to do just as you please, — when this is done, where this doctrine 
prevails, the miners and sappers will have formed public opinion 
for the slave trade. They will be ready for Jeff. Davis and 
Stephens and other leaders of that company to sound the bugle 
for the revival of the slave-trade, for the second Dred Scott de- 
cision, for the flood of slavery to be poured over the Free States, 
while we shall be here tied down and helpless and run over like 
sheep. 

It is to be a part and parcel of this same idea, to say to men 
who want to adhere to the Democratic party, who have always 
belonged to that party, and are only looking about for some ex- 
cuse to stick to it, but nevertheless hate slavery, that Douglas's 
popular sovereignty is as good a way as any to oppose slavery. 
They allow themselves to be persuaded easily, in accordance 
with their previous dispositions, into this belief, that it is about 
as good a wa}'^ of opposing slavery as any, and we can do that 
without straining our old party ties or breaking up old political 
associations. We can do so without being called negro wor- 
shippers. We can do that without being subjected to the jibes 
and sneers that are so readily thrown out in place of argument 
where no argument can be found. So let us stick to this popular 
sovereignty, — this insidious popular sovereignty. Now let me 
call your attention to one thing that has really happened, which 
shows this gradual and steady debauching of public opinion, this 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 385 

course of preparation for the revival of the slave-trade, for the 
Territorial slave code, and the new Dred Scott decision that is 
to carry slavery into the Free States. Did you ever, five years ago, 
hear of anybody in the world saying that the negro had no share 
in the Declaration of National Independence ; that it does not 
mean negroes at all ; and when "all men" were spoken of, negroes 
were not included? 

I am satisfied that five years ago that proposition was not 
put upon paper by any living being anj^where. I have been un- 
able at any time to find a man in an audience who would declare 
that he had ever known of an3^body saying so five years ago. 
But last year there was not a Douglas popular sovereign in Illi- 
nois who did not say it. Is there one in Ohio but declares his 
firm belief that the Declaration of Independence did not mean 
negroes at all? I do not know how this is ; I have not been here 
much ; but I presume you are very much alike everywhere. 
Then I suppose that all now express the belief that the Declara- 
tion of Independence never did mean negroes. I call upon one 
of them to say that he said it five years ago. 

If you think that now, and did not think it then, the next 
thing that strikes me is to remark that there has been a change 
wrought in you, — and a very significant change it is, being no 
less than changing the negro, in your estimation, from the rank 
of a man to that of a brute. They are taking him down, and 
placing him, when spoken of, among reptiles and crocodiles, as 
Judge Douglas himself expresses it. 

Is not this change wrought in your minds a very important 
change? Public opinion in this country is everything. In a 
nation like ours, this popular sovereignty and squatter sover- 
eignty have already wrought a change in the public mind to the 
extent I have stated. There is no man in this crowd who can 
contradict it. 

Now, if you are opposed to slavery honestly, as much as 
anybody, I ask you to note that fact, and the like of which is to 
follow, to be plastered on, layer after layer, until very soon you 
are prepared to deal with the negro every where as with the brute. 
If public sentiment has not been debauched already to this point, 
a new turn of the screw in that direction is all that is wanting ; 
and this is constantly being done by the teachers of this insidious 
popular sovereignty. You need but one or two turns further, 
until your minds, now ripening under these teachings, will be 
ready for all these things, and you will receive and support, or 
submit to, the slave-trade, revived with all its horrors, a slave- 
code enforced in our Territories, and a new Dred Scott decision 
to bring slavery up into the very heart of the free North. This, 
I must say, is but carrying out those words prophetically spoken 
by Mr. Clay, — many, many years ago, — I believe more than 

50 



386 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

thirty years, — when he told an audience that if they would re- 
press all tendencies to liberty and ultimate emancipation, they 
must go back to the era of our independence, and muzzle the 
cannon which thundered its annual joyous return on the Fourth 
of July ; they must blow out the moral lights around us ; they 
must penetrate the human soul, and eradicate the love of liberty : 
but until they did these things, and others eloquentl}^ enumerated 
by him, they could not repress all tendencies to ultimate emanci- 
pation. 

I ask attention to the fact that in a pre-eminent degree these 
popular sovereigns are at this work, blowing out the moral lights 
around us ; teaching that the negro is no longer a man, but a 
brute ; that the Declaration has nothing to do with him ; that he 
ranks with the crocodile and the reptile ; that man, with body 
and soul, is a matter of dollars and cents. I suggest to this por- 
tion of the Ohio Republicans, or Democrats, if there be any 
present, the serious consideration of this fact that there is now 
going on among you a steady process of debauching public 
opinion on this subject. With this, my friends, I bid you adieu. 



SPEECH OF HON. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 

At Cincinnati, Ohio, September, 1859. 

My Fellow-Citizens of the State of Ohio : This is 
the rirst time in my life that I have appeared before an audience 
in so great a city as this. I therefore — though I am no longer a 
young man — make this appearance under some degree of em- 
barrassment. But I have found that when one is embarrassed, 
usually the shortest way to get through with it is to quit talking 
or thinking about it, and go at something else. 

I understand that you have had recently with you my very 
distinguished friend. Judge Douglas, of Illinois, and I under- 
stand, without having had an opportunity (not greatly sought, to 
be sure) of seeing a report of the speech that he made here, that 
he did me the honor to mention my hurmble name. I suppose 
that he did so for the purpose of making some objection to some 
sentiment at some time expressed by me. I should expect, it is 
true, that Judge Douglas had reminded you, or informed you, if 
you had never before heard it, that I had once in my life de- 
clared it as my opinion that this government cannot " endure 
permanently, half slave and half free ; that a house divided 
against itself cannot stand," and, as I had expressed it, I did 
not expect the house to fall, that I did not expect the Union to 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 387 

be dissolved ; but that I did expect that it would cease to be 
divided, that it would become all one thing, or all the other, that 
either the opposition of slavery would arrest the further spread 
of it, and place it where the public mind would rest in the belief 
that it was in the course of ultimate extinction, or the friends of 
slavery will push it forward imtil it becomes alike lawful in all 
the States, old or new, free as well as slave. I did, fifteen months 
ago, express that opinion, and upon many occasions Judge 
Douglas has denounced it, and has greatly, intentionally or un- 
intentionally, misrepresented my purpose in the expression of 
that opinion. 

I presume, without having seen a report of his speech, that 
he did so here. I presume that he alluded also to that opinion, 
in different language, having been expressed at a subsequent 
time by Governor Seward of New York, and that he took the 
two in a lump and denounced them ; that he tried to point out 
that there was something couched in this opinion which led to 
the making of an entire uniformity of the local institutions of 
the various States of the Union, in utter disregard of the different 
States, which in their nature would seem to require a variety of 
institutions and a variety of laws, conforming to the differences 
in the nature of the different States. 

Not only so, I presume he insisted that this was a declara- 
tion of war between the Free and Slave States, — that it was the 
sounding to the onset of continual war between the different 
States, the Slave and Free States. 

This charge, in this form, was made by Judge Douglas on, 
I believe, the 9th of July, 1858, in Chicago, in my hearing. On 
the next evening, I made some reply to it. I informed him that 
many of the inferences he drew from that expression of mine 
were altogether foreign to any purpose entertained by me, and 
in so far as he should ascribe these inferences to me, as my 
purpose, he was entirely mistaken ; and in so far as he might 
argue that whatever might be my purpose, actions, conforming 
to my views, would lead to these results, he might argue and 
establish if he could ; but, so far as purposes were concerned, he 
was totally mistaken as to me. 

When I made that reply to him, when I told him, on the 
question of declaring war between the different States of the 
Union, that I had not said that I did not expect any peace upon 
this question until slavery was exterminated ; that I had only 
said I expected peace when that institution was put where the 
public mind should rest in the belief that it was in course of 
ultimate extinction ; that I believed, from the organization of our 
government until a very recent period of time, the institution had 
been placed and continued upon such a basis ; that we had had 
comparative peace upon that question through a portion of that 



388 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

period of time, only because the public mind rested in that belief 
in regard to it, and that when we returned to that position in rela- 
tion to that matter, I supposed we should again have peace as we 
previously had. I assured him, as I now assure you, that I 
neither then had, nor have, or ever had, any purpose in any way 
of interfering with the institution of slavery, where it exists. I 
believe we have no power, under the Constitution of the United 
States, or rather under the form of government under which we 
live, to interfere with the institution of slavery, or any other of 
the institutions of our sister States, be they Free or Slave States. 
I declared then, and I now re-declare, that I have as little 
inclination to interfere with the institution of slavery where it 
now exists, through the instrumentality of the General Govern- 
ment, or any other instrumentality, as I believe we have no 
power to do so. I accidentally used this expression : I had no 
purpose of entering into the Slave States to disturb the institu- 
tion of slavery ! So, upon the first occasion that Judge Douglas 
got an opportunity to reply to me, he passed by the whole body 
of what I had said upon that subject, and seized upon the 
particular expression of mine that I had no purpose of entering 
into the Slave States to disturb the institution of slavery. " Oh, 
no," said he, " he [Lincoln] won't enter into the Slave States to 
disturb the institution of slavery, — he is too prudent a man to 
do such a thing as that ; he only means that he will go on to 
the line between the Free and Slave States, and shoot over at 
them. This is all he means to do. He means to do them all the 
harm he can, to disturb them all he can, in such a way as to 
keep his own hide in perfect safety." 

Well, now, I did not think, at that time, that that was either 
a very dignified or very logical argument : but so it was, I had 
to get along with it as well as I could. 

It has occurred to me here to-night that if I ever do shoot 
over the line at the people on the other side of the line into a 
Slave State, and purpose to do so, keeping my skin safe, that I 
have now about the best chance I shall ever have. I should not 
wonder that there are some Kentuckians about this audience ; 
we are close to Kentucky ; and whether that be so or not, we 
are on elevated ground, and, by speaking distinctly, I should not 
wonder if some of the Kentuckians would hear me on the other 
side of the river. For that reason I propose to address a portion 
of what I have to say to the Kentuckians. 

I say, then, in the first place, to the Kentuckians, that I am 
what they call, as I understand it, a " Black Republican." I 
think slavery is wrong, morally and politically. I desire that it 
should be no further spread in these United States, and I should 
not object if it should gradually terminate in the whole Union. 
While I say this for myself, I say to you Kentuckians that 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 389 

I understand you differ radically with me upon this proposi- 
tion ; that you believe slavery is a good thing ; that slavery is 
right ; that it ought to be extended and perpetuated in this 
Union, Now, there being this broad difference between us, I do 
not pretend, in addressing myself to you Kentuckians, to attempt 
proselyting you ; that would be a vain effort. I do not enter 
upon it. I only propose to try to show you that you ought to 
nominate for the next Presidency, at Charleston, my distinguished 
friend Judge Douglas. In all that there is a difference between 
you and him, I understand he is sincerely for you, and more 
wisely for you than you are for yourselves. I will try to demon- 
strate that proposition. Understand, now, I say that I believe 
he is as sincerely for you, and more wisely for you, than you are 
for yourselves. 

What do you want more than anything else to make suc- 
cessful your views of slavery, — to advance the outspread of it, 
and to secure and perpetuate the nationality of it? What do 
you want more than anything else? What is needed absolutely? 
What is indispensable to you? Why! if I may be allowed to 
answer the question, it is to retain a hold upon the North, — it is 
to retain support and strength from the Free States. If you can 
get this support and strength from the Free States, you can 
succeed. If you do not get this support and this strength from 
the Free States, you are in the minority, and you are beaten at 
once. 

If that proposition be admitted, — and it is undeniable, — then 
the next thing I say to you is, that Douglas, of all the men in 
this nation, is the only man that affords you any hold upon the 
Free States ; that no other man can give you any strength in 
the Free States. This being so, if you doubt the other branch 
of the proposition, whether he is for you, — whether he is really 
for you, as I have expressed it, — I propose asking your attention 
for a while to a few facts. 

The issue between you and me, understand, is, that I think 
slavery is wrong, and ought not to be outspread ; and you think 
it is right, and ought to be extended and perpetuated. [A voice, 
"Oh, Lord."] That is my Kentuckian I am talking to now. 

I now proceed to try to show you that Douglas is as 
sincerely for 3^ou and more wisely for you than you are for 
yourselves. 

In the first place, we know that in a government like this, in 
a government of the people, where the voice of all the men of 
the country, substantially, enters into the execution — or adminis- 
tration, rather — of the government, — in such a government, what 
lies at the bottom of all of it is public opinion. I lay down the 
proposition, that Judge Douglas is not only the man that promises 
you in advance a hold upon the North, and support in the North, 



390 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

but that he constantly moulds public opinion to your ends ; that 
in every possible way he can, he constantly moulds the public 
opinion of the North to your ends ; and if there are a few things 
in which he seems to be against you, — a few things which he says 
that appear to be against 3^ou, and a few that he forbears to say 
which you would like to have him say, you ought to remember 
that the saying of the one, or the forbearing to say the other, 
would lose his hold upon the North, and, by consequence, would 
lose his capacit}'^ to serve you. 

Upon this subject of moulding public opinion I call your 
attention to the fact — for a well-established fact it is — that the 
Judge never says your institution of slavery is wrong. There is 
not a public man in the United States, I believe, with the excep- 
tion of Senator Douglas, who has not, at some time in his life, 
declared his opinion whether the thing is right or wrong ; but 
Senator Douglas never declares it is wrong. He leaves himselt 
at perfect liberty to do all in your favor which he would be 
hindered from doing if he were to declare the thing to be wrong. 
On the contrary, he takes all the chances that he has for 
inveigling the sentiment of the North, opposed to slavery, into 
your support, by never saying it is right. This you ought to set 
down to his credit. You ought to give him full credit for this 
much, little though it be, in comparison to the whole which he 
does for you. 

Some other things I will ask your attention to. He said 
upon the floor of the United States Senate, and he has repeated 
it, as I understand, a great many times, that he does not care 
whether slavery is "voted up or voted down." This again 
shows you, or ought to show you, if you would reason upon it, 
that he does not believe it to be wrong ; for a man may say, 
when he sees nothing wrong in a thing, that he does not care 
whether it be voted up or voted down, but no man can logically 
say that he cares not whether a thing goes up or goes down, 
which to him appears to be wrong. You therefore have a 
demonstration in this that to Judge Douglas's mind your favorite 
institution, which you would have spread out and made perpetual, 
is no wrong. 

Another thing he tells you, in a speech made at Memphis, 
in Tennessee, shortly after the canvass in Illinois, last year. He 
there distinctly told the people that there was a "line drawn by 
the Almighty across this continent, on the one side of which the 
soil must always be cultivated by slaves ;" that he did not pre- 
tend to know exactly where that line was, but that there was 
such a line. I want to ask your attention to that proposition 
again : that there is one portion of this continent where the 
Almighty has designed the soil shall always be cultivated by 
slaves ; that its being cultivated by slaves at that place is right ; 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 391 

that it has the direct sympathy and authority of the Almighty. 
Whenever you can get these Northern audiences to adopt the 
opinion that slavery is right on the other side of the Ohio ; 
whenever you can get them, in pursuance of Douglas's views, to 
adopt that sentiment, they will very readily make the other argu- 
ment, which is perfectly logical, that that which is right on that 
side of the Ohio cannot be wrong on this, and that if you have 
that property on that side of the Ohio, under the seal and stamp 
of the Almighty, when by any means it escapes over here it is 
wrong to have constitutions and laws "to devil" you about it. 
So Douglas is moulding the public opinion of the North, first to 
say that the thing is right in your State over the Ohio River, and 
hence to say that that which is right there is not wrong here, 
and that all laws and constitutions here, recognizing it as being 
wrong, are themselves wrong, and ought to be repealed and 
abrogated. He will tell you, men of Ohio, that if you choose 
here to have laws against slavery, it is in conformity to the idea 
that your climate is not suited to it, that your climate is not 
suited to slave labor, and therefore you have constitutions and 
laws against it. 

Let us attend to that argument for a little while, and see if 
it be sound. You do not raise sugar-cane (except the new-fash- 
ioned sugar-cane, and you won't raise that long), but they do 
raise it in Louisiana. You don't raise it in Ohio, because you 
can't raise it profitably, because the climate don't suit it. They 
do raise it in Louisiana, because there it is profitable. Now, 
Douglas will tell you that is precisely the slavery question : that 
they do have slaves there, because they are profitable ; and you 
don't have them here, because they are not profitable. If that is 
so, then it leads to dealing with the one precisely as with the 
other. Is there, then, anything in the Constitution or laws of 
Ohio against raising sugar-cane? Have you found it necessary 
to put any such provision in your law? Surely not! No man 
desires to raise sugar-cane in Ohio, but if any man did desire to 
do so, you would say it was a tyrannical law that forbids his 
doing so ; and whenever you shall agree with Douglas, whenever 
your minds are brought to adopt his argument, as surely you will 
have reached the conclusion that although slavery is not profitable 
in Ohio, if any man wants it, it is wrong to him not to let him 
have it. 

In this matter Judge Douglas is preparing the public mind 
for you of Kentucky to make perpetual that good thing in your 
estimation, about which you and I differ. 

In this connection, let me ask your attention to another 
thing. I believe it is safe to assert that five years ago no living 
man had expressed the opinion that the negro had no share in 
the Declaration of Independence. Let me state that again : five 



392 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

years ago no living man had expressed the opinion that the 
negro had no share in the Declaration of Independence. If 
there is in this large audience any man who ever knew of that 
opinion being put upon paper as much as five years ago, I will 
be obliged to him now or at a subsequent time to show it. 

If that be true I wish you then to note the next fact : that 
within the space of five years Senator Douglas, in the argument 
of this question, has got his entire party, so far as I know, with- 
out exception, to join in saying that the negro has no share in 
the Declaration of Independence. If there be now in all these 
United States one Douglas man that does not say this, I have 
been unable upon any occasion to scare him up. Now, if none ot 
you said this five years ago, and all of you say it now, that is a 
matter that you Kentuckians ought to note. That is a vast 
change in the Northern public sentiment upon that question. 

Of what tendency is that change? The tendency of that 
change is to bring the public mind to the conclusion that when 
men are spoken of, the negro is not meant ; that when negroes 
are spoken of, brutes alone are contemplated. That change in 
public sentiment has already degraded the black man in the esti- 
mation of Douglas and his followers from the condition of a man 
of some sort, and assigned him to the condition of a brute. Now, 
you Kentuckians ought to give Douglas credit for this. That 
is the largest possible stride that can be made in regard to the 
perpetuation of your thing of slavery. 

A voice : Speak to Ohio men, and not to Kentuckians ! 

Mr. Lincoln : I beg permission to speak as I please. 

In Kentucky perhaps, in many of the Slave States certainly, 
you are trying to establish the rightfulness of slavery by refer- 
ence to the Bible. You are trying to show that slavery existed 
in the Bible times by divine ordinance. Now, Douglas is wiser 
than you, for your own benefit, upon that subject. Douglas 
knows that whenever you establish that slavery was right by the 
Bible, it will occur that that slavery was the slavery of the white 
man, — of men without reference to color ; and he knows very 
well that you may entertain that idea in Kentucky as much as 
you please, but you will never win any Northern support upon 
it. He makes a wiser argument for you : he makes the argument 
that the slavery of the black man, the slavery of the man who 
has a skin of a different color from your own, is right. He 
thereby brings to your support Northern voters who could not 
for a moment be brought by your own argument of the Bible- 
right of slavery. Will you not give him credit tor that? Will 
you not say that in this matter he is more wisel}?" for you than 
you are for yourselves ? 

Now, having established with his entire party this doctrine, 
having been entirely successful in that branch of his efforts in 
your behalf, he is ready for another. 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 393 

At this same meeting at Memphis he declared that while in 
all contests between the negro and the white man he was for the 
white man, but that in all questions between the negro and the 
crocodile he was for the negro. He did not make that declara- 
tion accidentally at Memphis. He made it a great many times in 
the canvass in Illinois last year (though I don't know that it was 
reported in any of his speeches there) , but he frequently made it. 
I believe he repeated it at Columbus, and I should not wonder if 
he repeated it here. It is, then, a deliberate way of expressing 
himself upon that subject. It is a matter of mature deliberation 
with him thus to express himself upon that point of his case. 
It therefore requires some deliberate attention. 

The first inference seems to be that if you do not enslave 
the negro, you are wronging the white man in some way or 
other, and that whoever is opposed to the negro being enslaved, 
is, in some way or other, against the white man. Is not that 
a falsehood? If there was a necessary conflict between the 
white man and the negro, I should be for the white man as 
much as Judge Douglas ; but I say there is no such necessary 
conflict. I say that there is room enough for us all to be free, and 
that it not only does not wrong the white man that the negro 
should be free, but it positively wrongs the mass of the white 
men that the negro should be enslaved ; that the mass of white 
men are really injured by the effects of slave labor in the vicinity 
of the fields of their own labor. 

But I do not desire to dwell upon this branch of the 
question more than to say that this assumption of his is false, and 
I do hope that that fallacy will not long prevail in the minds of 
intelligent white men. At all events, you ought to thank Judge 
Douglas for it ; it is for 3^our benefit it is made. 

The other branch of it is, that in the struggle between the negro 
and the crocodile, he is for the negro. Well, I don't know that 
there is any struggle between the negro and the crocodile, either. 
I suppose that if a crocodile (or, as we old Ohio River boatmen 
used to call them, alligators) should come across a white man, 
he would kill him if he could, and so he would a negro. But 
what, at last, is this proposition? I believe it is a sort of propo- 
sition in proportion, which may be stated thus : " As the negro 
is to the white man, so is the crocodile to the negro ; and as the 
negro may rightfully treat the crocodile as a beast or reptile, so 
the white man may rightfully treat the negro as a beast or a 
reptile." That is really the " knip " of all that argument of his. 

Now, my brother Kentuckians, who believe in this, you 
ought to thank Judge Douglas for having put that in a much 
more taking way than any of yourselves have done. 

Again, Douglas's g7'eat principle, " Popular Sover- 
eignty," as he calls it, gives you, by natural consequence, the 

51 



394 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

revival of the slave-trade whenever you want it. If you question 
this, listen awhile, consider awhile what I shall advance in support 
of that proposition. 

He sa3^s that it is the sacred right of the man who goes into 
the Territories to have slavery if he wants it. Grant that for 
argument's sake. Is it not the sacred right of the man who don't 
go there equally to buy slaves in Africa, if he wants them? Can 
you point out the difference? The man who goes into the Terri- 
tories of Kansas and Nebraska, or any other new Territor}'-, with 
the sacred right of taking a slave there which belongs to him, 
would certainly have no more right to take one there than I would, 
who own no slave, but who would desire to buy one and take him 
there. You will not say — ^you, the friends of Judge Douglas — 
but that the man who does not own a slave has an equal right to 
buy one and take him to the Territory as the other does? 

A voice : I want to ask a question. Don't foreign nations 
interfere with the slave-trade? 

Mr. Lincoln : Well ! I understand it to be a principle of 
Democracy to whip foreign nations whenever they interfere 
with us. 

Voice : I only asked for information. I am a Republican 
myself. 

Mr. Lincoln : You and I will be on the best terms in the 
world, but I do not wish to be diverted from the point I was tr}^- 
ing to press. 

I say that Douglas's Popular Sovereignty, establishing his 
sacred right in the people, if you please, if carried to its logical 
conclusion gives equally the sacred right to the people of the 
States or the Territories themselves to buy slaves wherever they 
can buy them cheapest ; and if any man can show a distinction, I 
should like to hear him try it. If any man can show how the 
people of Kansas have a better right to slaves, because they want 
them, then the people of Georgia have to buy them in Africa, I 
want him to do it. I think it cannot be done. If it is " Popular 
Sovereignty " for the people to have slaves because they want 
them, it is Popular Sovereignty for them to buy them in Africa 
because they desire to do so. 

I know that Douglas has recently made a little effort, — not 
seeming to notice that he had a different theory, — has made an 
effort to get rid of that. He has written a letter, addressed to 
somebody, I believe, who resides in Iowa, declaring his opposi- 
tion to the repeal of the laws that prohibit the African slave-trade. 
He bases his opposition to such repeal upon the ground that these 
laws are themselves one of the compromises of the Constitution 
of the United States. Now, it would be very interesting to see 
Judge Douglas or any of his friends turn to the Constitution of 
the United States and point out that compromise, to show where 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 395 

there is any compromise in the Constitution, or provision in the 
Constitution, express or implied, by which the administrators ot 
that Constitution are under any obligation to repeal the African 
slave-trade. I know, or at least I think I know, that the framers 
of that Constitution did expect that the African slave-trade would 
be abolished at the end of twenty years, to which time their pro- 
hibition against its being abolished extended. I think there is 
abundant cotemporaneous history to show that the framers of 
the Constitution expected it to be abolished. But while they so 
expected, they gave nothing for that expectation, and they put 
no provision in the Constitution requiring it should be so 
abolished. The migration or importation of such persons as the 
States shall see fit to admit shall not be prohibited, but a certain 
tax might be levied upon such importation. But what was to be 
done after that time? The Constitution is as silent about that 
as it is silent, personally, about myself. There is absolutely 
nothing in it about that subject ; there is only the expectation of 
the framers of the Constitution that the slave-trade would be 
abolished at the end of that time ; and they expected it would be 
abolished, owing to public sentiment, before that time ; and they 
put that provision in, in order that it should not be abolished 
before that time, for reasons which I suppose they thought to be 
sound ones, but which I will not now try to enumerate before you. 

But while they expected the slave-trade would be abolished 
at that time, they expected that the spread of slavery into the 
new Territories should also be restricted. It is as easy to prove 
that the framers of the Constitution of the United States expected 
that slavery should be prohibited from extending into the new 
Territories, as it is to prove that it was expected that the slave- 
trade should be abolished. Both these things were expected. 
One was no more expected than the other, and one was no more 
a compromise of the Constitution than the other. There was 
nothing said in the Constitution in regard to the spread of 
slavery into the Territory. I grant that ; but there was some- 
thing very important said about it by the same generation of men 
in the adoption of the old Ordinance of '87, through the influence 
of which you here in Ohio, our neighbors in Indiana, we in 
Illinois, our neighbors in Michigan and Wisconsin, are happy, 
prosperous, teeming millions of free men. That generation of 
men, though not to the full extent members of the Convention 
that framed the Constitution, were to some extent members of 
that Convention, holding seats at the same time in one body and 
the other, so that if there was any compromise on either of these 
subjects, the strong evidence is that that compromise was in favor 
of the restriction of slavery from the new Territories. 

But Douglas says that he is unalterably opposed to the repeal 
of those laws ; because, in his view, it is a compromise of the Con- 



396 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

stitution. You Kentuckians, no doubt, are somewhat offended 
with that ! You ought not to be ! You ought to be patient ! 
You ought to know that if he said less than that, he would lose 
the power of " lugging" the Northern States to your support. 
Really, what you would push him to do would take from him his 
entire power to serve you. And you ought to remember how 
long, by precedent, Judge Douglas holds himself obliged to stick 
by compromises. You ought to remember that by the time you 
yourselves think you are ready to inaugurate measures for the 
revival of the African slave-trade, that sufficient time will have 
arrived, by precedent, forjudge Douglas to break through that 
compromise. He says now nothing more strong than he said in 
1849 when he declared in favor of the Missouri Compromise, — 
that precisely four years and a quarter after he declared that 
Compromise to be a sacred thing, which " no ruthless hand 
would ever dare to touch," he himself brought forward the 
measure ruthlessly to destroy it. By a mere calculation of time 
it will only be four years more until he is ready to take back his 
profession about the sacredness of the Compromise abolishing 
the slave-trade. Precisely as soon as you are ready to have his 
services in that direction, by fair calculation, you may be sure 
of having them. 

But you remember and set down to Judge Douglas's debt, 
or discredit, that he, last year, said the people of Territories can, 
in spite of the Dred Scott decision, exclude your slaves from 
those Territories; that he declared, by "unfriendly legislation" 
the extension of your property into the new Territories may be 
cut off", in the teeth of the decision of the Supreme Court of the 
United States. 

He assumed that position at Freeport on the 27th of August, 
1858. He said that the people of the Territories can exclude 
slavery, in so many words. You ought, however, to bear in mind 
that he has never said it since. You may hunt in every speech 
that he has since made, and he has never used that expression 
once. He has never seemed to notice that he is stating his views 
differently from what he did then ; but by some sort of accident, 
he has always really stated it differently. He has always since 
then declared that " the Constitution does not carry slavery into 
the Territories of the United States beyond the power of the 
people legally to control it, as other property." Now, there is a 
difference in the language used upon that former occasion and 
in this latter day. There may or may not be a difference in the 
meaning, but it is worth while considering whether there is not 
also a difference in meaning. 

What is it to exclude ? Why, it is to drive it out. It is in some 
way to put it out of the Territory. It is to force it across the 
line, or change its character so that, as property, it is out of exist- 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 897 

ence. But what is the controlling of it "as other property"? 
Is controlling it as other property the same thing as destroying 
it, or driving it away? I should think not. I should think the 
controlling of it as other property would be just about what you 
in Kentucky should want. I understand the controlling of 
property means the controlling of it for the benefit of the owner 
of it. While I have no doubt the Supreme Court of the United 
States would say "God speed" to any of the Territorial Legisla- 
tures that should thus control slave property, they would sing 
quite a different tune if, by the pretence of controlling it, they 
were to undertake to pass laws which virtually excluded it, — 
and that upon a very well known principle to all lawyers, that 
what a Legislature cannot directly do, it cannot do by indirec- 
tion ; that as the Legislature has not the power to drive slaves 
out, they have no power, by indirection, by tax, or by imposing 
burdens in an}^ way on that property, to effect the same end, and 
that any attempt to do so would be held by the Dred Scott court 
unconstitutional. 

Douglas is not willing to stand by his first proposition that 
they can exclude it, because we have seen that that proposition 
amounts to nothing more nor less than the naked absurdity that 
you may lawfully drive out that which has a lawful right to re- 
main. He admitted at first that the slave might be lawfully 
taken into the Territories under the Constitution of the United 
States, and yet asserted that he might be lawfully driven out. 
That being the proposition, it is the absurdity I have stated. He 
is not willing to stand in the face of that direct, naked, and impu- 
dent absurdity ; he has, therefore, modified his language into that 
of being ^''controlled as other -pro-perty ^ 

The Kentuckians don't like this in Douglas ! I will tell you 
where it will go. He now swears by the court. He was once a 
leading man in Illinois to break down a court, because it had 
made a decision he did not like. But he now not only swears by 
the court, the courts having got to working for you, but he de- 
nounces all men that do not swear by the courts, as unpatriotic, 
as bad citizens. When one oi these acts of unfriendly legislation 
shall impose such heavy burdens as to, in effect, destroy property 
in slaves in a Territory, and show plainly enough that there can 
be no mistake in the purpose of the Legislature to make them so 
burdensome, this same Supreme Court will decide that law to be 
unconstitutional, and he will be ready to say for your benefit " I 
swear by the court ; I give it up ;" and while that is going on he 
has been getting all his men to swear by the courts, and to give 
it up with him. In this again he serves you faithfully, and, as I 
say, more wisely than you serve yourselves. 

Again : I have alluded in the beginning of these remarks 
to the fact that Judge Douglas has made great complaint of my 



398 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

having expressed the opinion that this government " cannot en- 
dure permanently, half slave and half free." He has com- 
plained of Seward for using different language, and declaring 
that there is an " irrepressible conflict " between the principles 
of free and slave labor. [A voice : He says it is not original 
with Seward. That is original with Lincoln.] I will attend to 
that immediately, sir. Since that time, Hickman of Pennsylva- 
nia expressed the same sentiment. He has never denounced 
Mr. Hickman: why? There is a little chance, notwithstanding 
that opinion in the mouth of Hickman, that he may yet be a 
Douglas man. That is the difference ! It is not unpatriotic to 
hold that opinion if a man is a Douglas man. 

But neither I, nor Seward, nor Hickman is entitled to the 
enviable or unenviable distinction of having first expressed that 
idea. That same idea was expressed by the Richmond "Enquirer" 
in Virginia, in 1856, — quite two years before it was expressed 
by the first of us. And while Douglas was pluming himself that 
in his conflict with my humble self, last year, he had " squelched 
out" that fatal heresy, as he delighted to call it, and had sug- 
gested that if he only had had a chance to be in New York and 
meet Seward he would have "squelched" it there also, it never 
occurred to him to breathe a word against Pryor. I don't think 
that you can discover that Douglas ever talked of going to Vir- 
ginia to " squelch " out that idea there. No. More than that. 
That same Roger A. Pryor was brought to Washington City and 
made the editor of the par excellence Douglas paper, after making 
use of that expression, which, in us, is so unpatriotic and hereti- 
cal. From all this, my Kentucky friends may see that this 
opinion is heretical in his view only when it is expressed by men 
suspected of a desire that the country shall all become free, and 
not when expressed by those fairly known to entertain the desire 
that the whole country shall become slave. When expressed by 
that class of men, it is in nowise offensive to him. In this again, 
my friends of Kentucky, you have Judge Douglas with you. 

There is another reason why you Southern people ought to 
nominate Douglas at your Convention at Charleston. That rea- 
son is the wonderful capacity of the man, — the power he has of 
doing what would seem to be impossible. Let me call your at- 
tention to one of these apparently impossible things. 

Douglas had three or four very distinguished men of the 
most extreme anti-slavery views of any men in the Republican 
party expressing their desire for his re-election to the Senate last 
year. That would, of itself, have seemed to be a little wonder- 
ful ; but that wonder is heightened when we see that Wise of 
Virginia, a man exactly opposed to them, a man who believes in 
the divine right of slavery, was also expressing his desire that 
Douglas should be re-elected ; that another man that may be 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 399 

said to be kindred to Wise, Mr. Breckinridge, the Vice-President, 
and of your own State, was also agreeing with the anti-slavery 
men in the North that Douglas ought to be re-elected. Still, to 
heighten the wonder, a senator from Kentucky, who I have always 
loved with an affection as tender and endearing as I have ever 
loved any man ; who was opposed to the anti-slavery men for 
reasons which seemed sufficient to him, and equally opposed to 
Wise and Breckinridge, was writing letters into Illinois to secure 
the re-election of Douglas. Now, that all these conflicting ele- 
ments should be brought, while at daggers' points with one 
another, to support him, is a feat that is worthy for you to note 
and consider. It is quite probable that each of these classes of 
men thought, by the re-election of Douglas, their peculiar views 
w^ould gain something : it is probable that the anti-slavery men 
thought their views would gain something ; that Wise and Breck- 
inridge thought so too, as regards their opinions ; that Mr. Crit- 
tenden thought that his views would gain something, although 
he was opposed to both these other men. It is probable that 
each and all of them thought that they were using Douglas ; and 
it is yet an unsolved problem whether he was not using them all. 
If he was, then it is for you to consider whether that power to 
perform wonders is one for you lightly to throw away. 

There is one other thing that I will say to you, in this rela- 
tion. It is but my opinion, I give it to you without a fee. It is 
my opinion that it is for you to take him or be defeated ; and 
that if you do take him you may be beaten. You will surely be 
beaten if you do not take him. We, the Republicans and others 
forming the opposition of the country, intend to " stand by our 
guns," to be patient and firm, and in the long run to beat you, 
whether you take him or not. We know that before we fairly 
beat you, we have to beat you both together. We know that you 
are " all of a feather," and that we have to beat you all together, 
and we expect to do it. We don't intend to be very impatient 
about it. We mean to be as deliberate and calm about it as it is 
possible to be, but as firm and resolved as it is possible for men 
to be. When we do as we say, — beat you, — you perhaps want 
to know what we will do with you. 

I will tell you, so far as I am authorized to speak for the 
opposition, what we mean to do with you. We mean to treat 
you, as near as we possibly can, as Washington, Jefferson, and 
Madison treated you. We mean to leave you alone, and in no 
way to interfere with your institution ; to abide by all and every 
compromise of the Constitution, and, in a word, coming back to 
the original proposition, to treat you, so far as degenerated men 
(if we have degenerated) may, according to the examples of 
those noble fathers, — Washington, Jefferson, and Madison. We 
mean to remember that you are as good as we ; that there is no 



400 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

difference between us other than the difference of circumstances. 
We mean to recognize and bear in mind always that you have as 
good hearts in your bosoms as other people, or as we claim to 
have, and treat you accordingly. We mean to marry your girls 
when we have a chance, — the white ones I mean ; and I have 
the honor to inform you that I once did have a chance in that 
way. 

I have told you what we mean to do. I want to know, now, 
when that thing takes place, what do you mean to do. I often 
hear it intimated that you mean to divide the Union whenever a 
Republican, or anything like it, is elected President of the United 
States. [A voice: That is so.] "That is so," one of them 
says; I wonder if he is a Kentuckian? [A voice: He is a 
Douglas man.] Well, then, I want to know what you are going 
to do with your half of it? Are you going to split the Ohio down 
through, and push your half off a piece ? Or are you going to 
keep it right alongside of us outrageous fellows? Or are you 
going to build up a wall some way between your country and 
ours, by which that movable property of yours can't come over 
here any more, to the danger of your losing it? Do you think 
you can better yourselves, on that subject, by leaving us here 
under no obligation whatever to return those specimens of your 
movable property that come hither? You have divided the 
Union because we would not do right with you, as you think, upon 
that subject ; when we cease to be under obligations to do 
anything for you, how much better off do you think you will 
be? Will you make war upon us and kill us all? Why, gentle- 
men, I think you are as gallant and as brave men as live ; that 
3'^ou can fight as bravely in a good cause, man for man, as any 
other people living ; that you have shown yourselves capable 
of this upon various occasions : but, man for man, you are not 
better than we are, and there are not so many of you as there 
are of us. You will never make much of a hand at whipping 
us. If we were fewer in numbers than you, I think that you 
could whip us ; if we were equal, it would likely be a drawn 
battle ; but, being inferior in numbers, you will make nothing by 
attempting to master us. 

But perhaps I have addressed myself as long, or longer, to 
the Kentuckians than I ought to have done, inasmuch as I have 
said that whatever course you take we intend in the end to beat 
you. I propose to address a few remarks to our friends, by way 
of discussing with them the best means of keeping that promise 
that I have in good faith made. 

It may appear a little episodical for me to mention the topic 
of which I will speak now. It is a favorable proposition of Doug- 
las's that the interference of the General Government, through the 
Ordinance of '87, or through any other act of the General Govern- 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 401 

ment, never has made or ever can make a Free State ; that the 
Ordinance of '87 did not make Free States of Ohio, Indiana, or 
Illinois. That these States are free upon his "great principle" 
of Popular Sovereignty, because the people of those several 
States have chosen to make them so. At Columbus, and 
probably here, he undertook to compliment the people that they 
themselves have made the State of Ohio free, and that the 
Ordinance of '87 was not entitled in any degree to divide the 
honor with them. I have no doubt that the people of the State 
of Ohio did make her free according to their own will and judg- 
ment, but let the facts be remembered. 

In 1802, I believe, it was you who made your first constitu- 
tion, with the clause prohibiting slavery, and you did it, I suppose, 
very nearly unanimously ; but you should bear in mind that 
you — speaking of you as one people — that you did so unembar- 
rassed by the actual presence of the institution amongst you ; 
that you made it a Free State, not with the embarrassment upon 
y6u of already having among you many slaves, which if they 
had been here, and you had sought to make a Free State, you 
would not know what to do with. If they had been among you, 
embarrassing difficulties, most probably, would have induced you 
to tolerate a slave constitution instead of a free one, as indeed 
these very difficulties have constrained every people on this 
continent who have adopted slavery. 

Pray what was it that made you free? What kept you 
free? Did you not find your country free when you came to 
decide that Ohio should be a Free State? It is important to 
inquire by what reason you found it so. Let us take an illustra- 
tion between the States of Ohio and Kentucky. Kentucky is 
separated by this River Ohio, not a mile wide. A portion of 
Kentucky, by reason of the course of the Ohio, is further north 
than this portion of Ohio, in which we now stand. Kentucky 
is entirely covered with slavery ; Ohio is entirely free from it. 
What made that difference? Was it climate? No. A portion 
of Kentucky was further north than this portion of Ohio. Was 
it soil? No. There is nothing in the soil of the one more 
favorable to slave labor than the other. It was not climate or 
soil that caused one side of the line to be entirely covered with 
slavery, and the other side free of it. What was it? Study 
over it. Tell us, if you can, in all the range of conjecture, if 
there be anything you can conceive of that made that difference, 
other than that there was no law of any sort keeping it out of 
Kentucky, while the Ordinance of '87 kept it out of Ohio. If 
there is any other reason than this, I confess that it is wholly 
beyond my power to conceive of it. This, then, I offer to 
combat the idea that that Ordinance has never made any State 
free. 

62 



402 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

I don't stop at this illustration. I come to the State of 
Indiana ; and what I have said as between Kentucky and Ohio, 
I repeat as between Indiana and Kentucky : it is equally applica- 
ble. One additional argument is applicable also to Indiana. In 
her Territorial condition she more than once petitioned Congress 
to abrogate the Ordinance entirely, or at least so far as to 
suspend its operation for a time, in order that they should exer- 
cise the "Popular Sovereignty" of having slaves if they wanted 
them. The men then controlling the General Government, imi- 
tating the men of the Revolution, refused Indiana that privilege. 
And so we have the evidence that Indiana supposed she could 
have slaves, if it were not for that Ordinance ; that she besought 
Congress to put that barrier out of the way ; that Congress 
refused to do so ; and it all ended at last in Indiana being a Free 
State. Tell me not then that the Ordinance of '87 had nothing 
to do with making Indiana a Free State, when we find some 
men chafing against, and only restrained by, that barrier. 

Come down again to our State of Illinois. The grt-iat 
Northwest Territory, including Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michi- 
gan, and Wisconsin, was acquired first, I believe, by the British 
Government, in part, at least, from the French. Before the 
establishment of our independence it becomes a part of Virginia, 
enabling Virginia afterward to transfer it to the General Govern- 
ment. There were French settlements in what is now Illinois, 
and at the same time there were French settlements in what is 
now Missouri, — in the tract of country that was not purchased 
till about 1803. In these French settlements negro slavery had 
existed for many years, — perhaps more than a hundred, if not as 
much as two hundred years, — at Kaskaskia, in Illinois, and at 
St. Genevieve, or Cape Girardeau, perhaps, in Missouri. The 
number of slaves was not very great, but there was about the 
same number in each place. They were there when we acquired 
the Territory. There was no effort made to break up the rela- 
tion of master and slave, and even the Ordinance of 1787 was 
not so enforced as to destroy that slavery in Illinois ; nor did 
the Ordinance apply to Missouri at all. 

What I want to ask your attention to, at this point, is that 
Illinois and Missouri came into the Union about the same time, 
Illinois in the latter part of 1818, and Missouri, after a struggle, 
I believe sometime in 1820. They had been filling up with 
American people about the same period of time ; their progress 
enabling them to come into the Union about the same time. At 
the end of that ten years, in which they had been so preparing 
(for it was about that period of time), the number of slaves in 
Illinois had actually decreased ; while in Missouri, beginning 
with very few, at the end of that ten years there were about 
ten thousand. This being so, and it being remembered that 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 403 

Missouri and Illinois are, to a certain extent, in the same parallel 
of latitude ; that the northern half of Missouri and the southern 
half of Illinois are in the same parallel of latitude, so that 
climate would have the same effect upon one as upon the other, 
and that in the soil there is no material difference so far as bears 
upon the question of slavery being settled upon one or the other, — 
there being none of those natural causes to produce a difference 
in filling them, and yet there being a broad difference in their 
filling up, we are led again to inquire what was the cause of 
that difference. 

It is most natural to say that in Missouri there was no law to 
keep that country from filling up with slaves, while in Illinois 
there was the Ordinance of '87. The Ordinance being there, 
slavery decreased during that ten years ; the Ordinance not being 
in the other, it increased from a few to ten thousand. Can any- 
body doubt the reason of the difference? 

I think all these facts most abundantly prove that my friend 
Judge Douglas's proposition, that the Ordinance of'87, orthe 
national restriction of slavery, never had a tendency to make a 
Free State, is a fallacy, — a proposition without the shadow or 
substance of truth about it. 

Douglas sometimes says that all the States (and it is part of 
this same proposition I have been discussing) that have become 
free have become so upon his "great principle ;" that the State of 
Illinois itself came into the Union as a Slave State, and that the 
people, upon the "great principle" of Popular Sovereignty, have 
since made it a Free State. Allow me but a little while to state 
to you what facts there are to justify him in saying that Illinois 
came into the Union as a Slave State. 

I have mentioned to you that there were a few old French 
slaves there. They numbered, I think, one or two hundred. 
Besides that, there had been a Territorial law for indenturing 
black persons. Under that law, in violation of the Ordinance of 
'87, but without any enforcement of the Ordinance to overthrow 
the system, there had been a small number of slaves introduced 
as indentured persons. Owing to this, the clause for the prohi- 
bition of slaver}^ was slightly modified. Instead of running like 
yours, that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except for 
crime, of which the party shall have been duly convicted, should 
exist in the State, they said that neither slavery nor involuntary 
servitude should thereafter be introduced, and that the children 
of indentured servants should be born free ; and nothing was 
said about the few old French slaves. Out of this fact, that the 
clause for prohibiting slaver}^ was modified because of the actual 
presence of it, Douglas asserts again and again that Illinois 
came into the Union as a Slave State. How far the facts sus- 
tain the conclusion that he draws, it is for intelligent and impar- 



404 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

tial men to decide. I leave it with you, with these remarks, 
worthy of being remembered, that that little thing, those few 
indentured servants being there, was of itself sufficient to modify 
a constitution made by a people ardently desiring to have a free 
constitution ; showing the power of the actual presence of the 
institution of slavery to prevent any people, however anxious to 
make a Free State, from making it perfectly so. 

I have been detaining you longer, perhaps, than I ought 
to do. 

I am in some doubt whether to introduce another topic upon 
which I could talk awhile. [Cries of "Go on," and "Give us it."] 
It is this, then : Douglas's Popular Sovereignty, as a principle, 
is simply this : If one man chooses to make a slave of another man, 
neither that man nor anybody else has a right to object. Apply 
it to government, as he seeks to apply it, and it is this : If, in a 
new Territory into which a few people are beginning to enter 
lor the purpose of making their homes, they choose to either 
exclude slavery from their limits, or to establish it there, however 
one or the other may affect the persons to be enslaved, or the 
infinitely greater number of persons who are afterward to inhabit 
that Territory, or the other members of the family of communities 
of which they are but an incipient member, or the general head 
of the family of States as parent of all, — however their action 
may affect one or the other of these, there is no power or right to 
interfere. That is Douglas's Popular Sovereignty applied. Now, 
I think that there is a real Popular Sovereignty in the world. I 
think a definition of Popular Sovereignty, in the abstract, would 
be about this : that each man shall do precisely as he pleases 
with himself, and with all those things which exclusively concern 
him. Applied in government, this principle would be : that a 
general government shall do all those things which pertain to it, 
and all the local governments shall do precisely as they please 
in respect to those matters which exclusivel}'' concern them. 

Douglas looks upon slaver}'^ as so insignificant that the people 
must decide that question for themselves ; and yet they are not 
fit to decide who shall be their governor, judge or secretary, or 
who shall be any of their officers. These are vast national mat- 
ters in his estimation ; but the little matter in his estimation is 
that of planting slavery there. That is purely of local interest, 
which nobody should be allowed to say a word about. 

Labor is the great source from which nearly all, if not all, 
human comforts and necessities are drawn. There is a difference 
in opinion about the elements of labor in societ}^ Some men 
assume that there is necessary connection between capital and 
labor, and that connection draws within it the whole of the labor 
of the community. They assume that nobod}'^ works unless 
capital excites them to work. They begin next to consider what 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 405 

is the best way. They say there are but two ways : one is to 
hire men, and to allure them to labor by their consent ; the other 
is to buy the men, and drive them to it ; and that is slavery. 
Having assumed that, they proceed to discuss the question of 
whether the laborers themselves are better off in the condition of 
slaves or of hired laborers, and they usually decide that they are 
better off in the condition of slaves. 

In the first place, I say that the whole thing is a mistake. 
That there is a certain relation between capital and labor, I 
admit. That it does exist, and rightfully exists, I think is true. 
That men who are industrious, and sober, and honest in the 
pursuit of their own interests should after a while accumulate 
capital, and after that should be allowed to enjoy it in peace, and 
also, if they should choose, when they have accumulated it, to 
use it to save themselves from actual labor, and hire other people 
to labor for them, is right. In doing so they do not wrong the 
man they employ, for the}^ find men who have not of their own 
land to work upon, or shops to work in, and who are benefited 
by working for others, hired laborers, receiving their capital for 
it. Thus a few men, that own capital, hire a few others, and 
these establish the relation of capital and labor rightfully. A 
relation of which I make no complaint. But I insist that that 
relation, after all, does not embrace more than one-eighth of the 
labor of the country. 

[The speaker proceeded to argue that the hired laborer, with his 
ability to become an employer, must have every precedence over 
him who labors under the inducement of force. He continued :] 

I have taken upon myself, in the name of some of you, to say 
that we expect upon these principles to ultimately beat them. In 
order to do so, I think we want and must have a national policy 
in regard to the institution of slavery, that acknowledges and 
deals with that institution as being wrong. Whoever desires the 
prevention of the spread of slavery and the nationalization of that 
institution, yields all, when he yields to any policy that either 
recognizes slavery as being right, or as being an indifferent thing. 
Nothing will make you successful but setting up a polic}^ which shall 
treat the thing as being wrong. When I say this, I do not mean to 
say that this General Government is charged with the duty of 
redressing or preventing all the wrongs in the world, but I do 
think that it is charged with preventing and redressing all wrongs 
which are wrongs to itself. This government is expressly 
charged with the duty of providing for the general welfare. We 
believe that the spreading out and perpetuity of the institution 
of slavery impairs the general welfare. We believe — nay, we 
know — that that is the only thing that has ever threatened the 
perpetuity of the Union itself. The only thing which has ever 



406 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

menaced the destruction of the government under which we live, 
is this very thing. To repress this thing, we think, is providing 
for the general welfare. Our friends in Kentucky differ from 
us. We need not make our argument for them, but we who 
think it is wrong in all its relations, or in some of them at least, 
must decide as to our own actions and our own course, upon our 
own judgment. 

I say that we must not interfere with the institution of slavery 
in the States where it exists, because the Constitution forbids it, 
and the general welfare does not require us to do so. We must 
not withhold an efficient Fugitive Slave law, because the Con- 
stitution requires us, as I understand it, not to withhold such a 
law. But we must prevent the outspreading of the institution, 
because neither the Constitution nor general welfare requires us 
to extend it. We must prevent the revival of the African slave- 
trade, and the enacting by Congress of a Territorial slave-code. 
We must prevent each of these things being done by either con- 
gresses or courts. The people of these United States are the 
rightful masters of both congresses and courts, not to overthrow 
the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Con- 
stitution. 

To do these things we must employ instrumentalities. We 
must hold conventions ; we must adopt platforms, if we conform 
to ordinary custom ; we must nominate candidates ; and we must 
carry elections. In all these things, I think that we ought to 
keep in view our real purpose, and in none do anything that 
stands adverse to our purpose. If we shall adopt a platform that 
fails to recognize or express our purpose, or elect a man that 
declares himself inimical to our purpose, we not only take 
nothing by our success, but we tacitly admit that we act upon no 
other principle than a desire to have " the loaves and fishes," b}'^ 
which, in the end, our apparent success is really an injury to us. 

I know that this is very desirable with me, as with every- 
body else, that all the elements of the opposition shall unite in 
the next Presidential election and in all future time. I am 
anxious that that should be ; but there are things seriously to be 
considered in relation to that matter. If the terms can be 
arranged, I am in favor of the Union. But suppose we shall take 
up some man, and put him upon one end or the other of the 
ticket, who declares himself against us in regard to the prevention 
of the spread of slavery, who turns up his nose and says he is 
tired of hearing anything more about it, who is more against us 
than against the enemy, what will be the issue? Why, he will 
get no Slave States, after all, — he has tried that already until 
being beat is the rule for him. If we nominate him upon that 
ground, he will not carr^"^ a Slave State ; and not only so, but that 
portion of our men who are high-strung upon the principle we 



AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 407 

really fight for will not go for him, and he won't get a single 
electoral vote anywhere, except, perhaps, in the State of Mary- 
land. There is no use in saying to us that we are stubborn and 
obstinate because we won't do some such thing as this. We 
cannot do it. We cannot get our men to vote it. I speak by 
the card, that we cannot give the State of Illinois in such case 
by fifty thousand. We would be flatter down than the "Negro 
Democracy" themselves have the heart to wish to see us. 

After saying this much, let me say a little on the other side. 
There are plenty of men in the Slave States that are altogether 
good enough for me to be either President or Vice-President, 
provided they will profess their sympathy with our purpose, and 
will place themselves on the ground that our men, upon principle, 
can vote for them. There are scores of them, good men in their 
character for intelligence and talent and integrity. If such a one 
will place himself upon the right ground, I am for his occupying 
one place upon the next Republican or opposition ticket. I will 
heartily go for him. But unless he does so place himself, I 
think it a matter of perfect nonsense to attempt to bring about a 
union upon any other basis ; that if a union be made, the elements 
will scatter so that there can be no success for such a ticket, nor 
anything like success. The good old maxims of the Bible are 
applicable, and truly applicable, to human affairs, and in this, as 
in other things, we may say here that he who is not for us is 
against us ; he who gathereth not with us, scattereth. I should 
be glad to have some of the many good, and able, and noble 
men of the South to place themselves where we can confer upon 
them the high honor of an election upon one or the other end of 
our ticket. It would do my soul good to do that thing. It 
would enable us to teach them that, inasmuch as we select one 
of their own number to carry out our principles, we are free from 
the charge that we mean more than we say. 

But, my friends, I have detained you much longer than I 
expected to do. I believe I may do myself the compliment to 
say that you have stayed and heard me with great patience, for 
which I return you my most sincere thanks. 



THE END. 



INDEX. 



Abolition Republican party, 202. 

Abolition, Society, 53; orators, 108; 
platform, 104-106, 230; doctrines, 131, 
150-158, 328; camp, 169-173, 234, 357; 
ticket. 232, 357; Legislature, 234; 
counties, 284; member of congress, 
303; constitution, 330; President, 380 ; 
administration, 330; candidates, 332. 

Abolitionists, referred to by Lincoln, 
27, 292-294, 3-57 ; referred to by Doug- 
las, 45, 64, 102-109, 122, 183, 201-202, 
221, 226-236, 262, 284, 288, 303-306, 
327-336, 357-362; of Springfield, 149; 
and Dred Scott case, 226; and 
Democracy, 228; Northern, 229; State 
offices, 233; Free Soil, 235; and 
Trumbull, 252; of Chicago, 306; and 
U. S. Constitution, 327; in 1850,334. 

Adams, John, 223. 

Adams, John Q^uncy, 223. 

Adams Co., 305. 

Africa, 7, 113, 383, 394. 

African slave trade, revival of, 113, 367, 
406; and Constitution of U. S., 346; 
prohibited, 366; repeal of laws against, 
382,383,394-396; and Territories, 314. 

Alabama, 203. 

Alleghany Mts., 110. 

Allen, Nathan, 189. 

Alton, 98, 100, 208, 209, 213, 220, 224, 
225, 255, 256; Trumbull's speech at, 
245; joint debate at, 325. 

American Tract Society, 350. 

Americans, The; see Know-Nothing 
party. 

Anti-Lecompton men, 41, 332. 

Anti-Nebraska men, 170,231-232. 

Arizona, 201. 

Ashland, 229, 359. 

Ashmun, Geo., 241, 358. 

Atlanta, 98. 

Atlantic ocean, 59. 

Augusta, 197. 

Aurora, 286, 301, 302. 

Austria, 46. 



Baker, Jehu, 264, 269. 

Baker, John, 171, 235. 

Baltimore, 101, 102, 153, 168, 280. 

Bangor, 335, 363. 

Bank, National, 30. 

Bank charter, 30. 

Banks, N. P., 201, 234. 

Beardstown, 245. 

Belleville district, 1C9, 170, 230. 

Bement, 100. 

Bible right of slavery, 392. 



Bigler, Senator, quoted by Trumbull, 
209, 215, 216, 242, 243, 247, 251; and 
Douglas, 221. 

Bissell, Gov., 174. 

Black Republican, platform, 103-107, 129, 
132, 148, 150-156; convention, 149, 171, 
199, 233; house, 160; candidates, 173; 
doctrine, 203. 

Black Republican party, referred to by 
Lincoln, 32, 388; referred to by Doug- 
las, 103-108, 129-132, 146-166. 171-174, 
223, 231-236. 

Blair, Frank, 300, .308, .353. 

Bloomington, Douglas's speech at, 36; 
45 ; 88 ; 89 ; 92 ; 98-99 ; organization of 
Republican party at, 133; Congres- 
sional district of, 199,236; State con- 
vention at, 290; 297; 301-302. 

Boston, 65. 

Bowen, S. W., 189. 

Breckenridge, J. C, 399. 

Breese, Sidney, 170, 201, 231-234. 

British Government, 362, 402. 

British Parliament, 362. 

Brooks, P. S., 91, 181, 319, 355, 361. 

Bross, Deacon, 150. 

Brown, Gratz, 300, 308, 353. 

Brown, James, 240. 

Browning, Mr., 27, 106, 174, 233. 

Buchanan, James, elected President, 3, 313 ; 
and the Lecompton constitution, 84-85, 
275,333; charge of conspiracy, 130-1.31, 
159-164, 226-227, 303, 324; and the 
Minnesota case, 180; nomination, 315- 
316; 334-a36; 338; letter of accept- 
ance, 362. 

Buchanan Democrat, 308. 

Buchanan men, 22. 

Buffalo, 57, 69. 

Calhoun, John, 24, 341. 

California, and the Chinese, 18; mining 
regions of, 70, 327; acquisition of, 147; 
Campbell sent to, 187-188; slavery in, 
191; and Compromise of 1850, 273, 
314; and the North, 337. 

Cambridge, Mass., 204. 

Campbell, Thompson, 186-188, 202. 

Canada, 179. 

Cape Girardeau, 402. 

Carlin, W. H.. 319, 320. 

Carlisle, Ills., 170. 

Carolinas, the, 1.3, 70. 

Casey, 198. 

Cass, L., and Compromise Measures of 
1850, 101, 152, 167, 228-229, .313, 316, 
3;M; and Chase's amendment, 131, 140, 
145; and Fred Douglass, 17U, 231. 



410 



INDEX. 



Central America, 18, 53, 80. 

Chaffee, Rev. Dr., 227, 303. 

Charleston, Ills., 98; 100; 171; joint 
debate at, 207, 263, 358; Lincoln's 
speech at, 245, 251, 262, 270, 284-285, 
292-297, 305-207, 322-323; convention 
at, 389, 398. 

Chase, S. P., and Nebraska bill, 5, 120; 
referred to bv Douglas, 103, 105; 
amendment, 131, 139-141, 145, 295, 
339; and Abolition camp, 152-153, 234, 
360; referred to by Lincoln, 363. 

Chicago, Douglas's speech at, 8-19, 64, 
88, 92, 99, 118, 202, 226, 245, 297, 325, 
887; 45; 65; Lincoln's speech at, 20, 
68.72,77, 90, 251, 262, 265, 270, 292, 
297, 305-307, 322, 323, 326, 340; Lin- 
coln's letters from, 97-98; 170; 171; 
Congressional district of, 199, 203, 236; 
Trumbull's speech at, 208, 213, 220, 224, 
250, 252, 255; opposed to Douglas, 
229-230; and Fred Douglass, 231, 235; 
Abolitionists of, 263; people of, 271, 
referred to by Douglas, 284; letter to 
"Times," 342" 

Chicago Press, the, 112. 

Chicago Times, the, 98, 112, 133, 224, 
241, 342. 

Chicago Tribune, the, 112. 

Chinese, 18, 55, 78. 

Cincinnati platform, indorsed bv Doug- 
las, 19, 42, 204, 313; referred to by 
Lincoln, 31, 32, 93, 125; and National 
Bank, 280; defined by Buchanan, 315, 
316. 

Cincinnati, Democratic convention at, 
93, 315; Lincoln's speech at, 386. 

Clav, Henry, and Crittenden, 39, 65; and 
Compromise of 1850, 10, 15, 40, 58, 64, 
101-102, 152, 153, 167, 168, 183-184, 
202, 228-230, 257, 266, 272-273, 305, 
313 316,329,333-334,349,361; 59; and 
Slavery, 94, 126, 135, 342-344, 353, 
385-386; and popular sovereignty, 95, 
223; and Lincoln, 262, 339, 340; and 
Colonization society, 281; and Declara- 
tion of Independence, 294, 322; Whig, 
.359; and Douglas, 360. 

Clinton, Ills., 119, 121. 

Codding, 127, 128, 149, .326. 

Cody, H. H., 189. 

Coles Co., Ills., 263, 284, 305. 

Colonization society, 281. 

Columbus, O., Lincoln's speech at, 363, 
393, 401. 

Committee on Territories, 216, 221-225, 
246, 248, 256, 314. 

Compromise Measures of 1850, see Claj-, 
Henry. 

"Congressional Globe," the, referred to by 
Douglas, 141, 224, 225, 256; referred to 
by Lincoln, 193, 242-243, 276; referred 
to by Trumbull, 215, 216, 217, 247-249. 

Congressional Slave Code, 367. 

Connecticut, 40, 105, 328. 



Constitution of the U. S., and negro 
citizenship, 4, 236-2.38, 325, 339; and 
state sovereignty, 6, 11-16, 70, 77-78, 
120-124, 139, 158, 165, 168, 171, 180, 
225, 288, 295, 309, 316-317, 331, 363, 
388, 399, 406; and slavery, 27, .35, 91, 
102, 145, 159, 188, 194, 279, 314, .340, 
346-348, 355, 391; and the National 
Bank, 95; and Supreme Court, 146, 
176, 192, 206, 280,289, 290, 311; oath 
of support of the, 195, 321, 356; and 
new territories, 229, 254, 257, 330, 
379-384, .397; and people of Chicago, 
230; and Constitutional Convention, 
267, 327; sixth article of, 278; and 
Russia, 285; and District of Columbia, 
298; and African slave trade, .394-.396. 

Constitutional Convention, 175,359. 

Cook, Isaac, 189. 

Cook Co.. Ills., 189. 

Coolies, 55. 

Corwin, Thomas, 358, 363. 

Cotton-gin, 319, 355. 

Court of St. James, 159, 227, 303. 

Cox, S. H., 260. 

Cranberry laws, 28, 29, 348, .349, 360. 

Crittenden, John J., 9, 39, 65, 345, 399. 

Crittenden-Montgomery bill, 9, 10, 40, 
65, 66, 152. 

Cuba, 179. 

Curtis, B. R., 5, 295. 

Danville, 189. 

Davis, Jake, 320. 

Davis, Jeff., 3.35. 363, 384. 

Declaration of Independence, and negro 
equality, 24, 34-36, 54-56, 77-79, 108, 
128, 149, 177, 236, 262-270, 284. 292, 294, 
.306, 322, 326, 340-343; signers of, 53, 
56; correction referred to by Lincoln, 
95; negro rights under, 114, 281,365, 
385-386, 391-392; and Clay, 126, 294; 
and Abolition lecturers, 177, 336. 

DeKalb Co., Ills., 189-190. 

"DeKalb Co. Sentinel,'' 190. 

" Democracy, Free," see Free. 

" Democracy, National," see National. 

Democratic administration, 3.32. 

Democratic candidates, 98, 260. 

Democratic district convention, 189. 

Democratic Judges, 50, 73. 

Democratic National Conventions, 42, 93, 
102, 153, 183, 315, 398. 

Democratic organization, 19-20. 

Democratic party, 167, 220, 258, 264, 275, 
351; and slavery, 9, 11, 204, 269, 299, 
300, 353-354, 362, 386; and alliance 
with Republicans, 20-21, 36, 41-43, 81, 
152, 161, 201-202,261; and Trumbull, 
25. 103, 106, 111-112, 153-154, 109-173, 
183, 231-234, 240, 251, 297; and Com- 
promise Measures of 1850, 58, 64, 168, 
228-230, 316, 334 ; and Nebraska bill, 65 ; 
principles, 66, 101, 132; regions, 82; and 
Anti-Lecompton, 85,331; and National 



INDEX. 



411 



Bank, 93; and war with Mexico, 115; 
and Fugitive slave law, 156; and 
Washington Union, 160, 165, 313; and 
Minnesota case, 180; and Dr. Molony, 
189; and Dred Scott, 226, 290, 303, 320, 
324; and Russia, 271; and Free States, 
272; and Supreme Court decisions, 
311; and Buchanan, 335; and Federal 
patronage, 357; General Taylor, 359; 
Popular Sovereignty, 384 ; and Foreign 
Nations. 394. 

Democratic platform, 315, 833. 

Democratic Presidents, 222-223. 

Democratic State Central Committee, 
42, 97, 98. 

Democratic State Conventions, 42, 185, 
191. 

Democratic ticket, 232-2.33. 

"Democrats, Union," see Union. 

Denis, Mr., 150. 

District of Columbia, and slavery in, 
103-104, 129-136, 170, 187, 191, 273, 
298, 301. 

Donnelly, Neil, 189. 

Dougherty, Col. John, 170, 185, 232, 234. 

Douglas, Stephen A., speech at Chicago, 
8-19; speech at Bloomington, 36-59; at 
Springfield, 60-80; correspondence 
with Lincoln, 97-100; speech at Ottawa, 
101-110; rejoinder, 127-132; speech at 
Freeport, 142-160; speech at Jonesboro, 
167-179; rejoinder, 199-206; speech at 
Charleston, 219-237; extract from 
speech at Jacksonville, 251-256; speech 
at Galesburgh, 257-267; rejoinder, 284- 
289; speech at C4j.iincy, 301-317 ; speech 
at Alton. 325-.337 ; rej'oinder, 357-363. 

Douglas platform, 39. 

" Douglas popular sovereignty," 367, 
368, 382, 385, 394, 404. 

Douglass, Fred., 103-109, 148-153, 170, 
201, 231,2,34. 

Dred Scott, 2, 4, 30, 48, 193, 227, 299, 
303, 325. 

Dred Scott Decision, referred to by 
Lincoln, 1-5, 29.34, 92-95, 117, 127, 
140-141, 193, 238, 278-279. 294-299, 
320-324, 339, 342, 354-357, 367, 379.385, 
396-397; referred to by Douglas, 16-18, 
47-55, 66, 71-79, 108-109, 160, 176-178, 
206, 226, 236-237, 266, 288-289, 303, 
309-311, 325-326. 

"Dred Scott Supreme Court," 380-381. 

Du Page Co., Ills., 189. 

Ed\v,\rds, Ninian, 64. 

Egypt, Ills., referred to by Douglas, 104, 

129, 171, 203, 235, 263-264, 312, 328; 

referred to by Lincoln, 146, 197-199, 

293, 322. 
Enabling Act, an, 63, 209-210, 249. 
England, 57. 

English, Mr., 259, 331-332. 
English bill, the, 38, 62, 87, 136, 191-192, 

258-260, 331-332. 



Englishman, 19, 21. 

Euclid, 244. 

European despotism, 159. 

Farnsworth, 108, 148-153, 197, 203, 
234-236, 287. 

Federal Constitution, 80. 

Federal Government, 1.5, 71-73, 179, 191, 
236, 259. 

Federal Union, 80. 

Feejee Islanders, 177, 336. 

Ficklin, Orlando B., 241, 353. 

Fillmore, Millard, 152, 168, 223, 228, 275. 

Florida, 91, 176. 

Fondev, 42. 

Ford's' Hist, of Ills., 125, 240. 

Fort Snelling, 48. 

Fourth of July, 386. 

France, 254. 

Franklin, B., 5, 107, 118, 130, 237. 

Free Democracy, the, 171, 235, 264, 269. 

Free-Soil-Abolition partv, 235. 

Free-Soil party, 47, 122, "l&5, 169. 

Freesoilism, 230. 

Free States, referred to by Douglas, 14, 
38,43-44,47, 61-72, 101, 107, 111, 132, 
143-146, 158-160, 169, 175-179, 205, 2.37, 
258-268, 285-288, 308, 316-318, 325-^37, 
360-363; referred to bv Lincoln, 89, 
117. 272-273, 281, 295", 300, 348-353, 
366, 384-389, 401-404; and Campbell's 
replies, 187. 

Free Territories, 144, 147, 151, 188. 

Freeport, Ills., joint debate at, 98, 100, 
133, 188-189, 191, 196-197, 205, 231, 
277; referred to by Douglas, 145, 148, 
170,304,313, 315, 328; referred to by 
Lincoln, 186, 238, 275, 281, 323, 334-336, 
379, 390. 

Fremont, J. C, 275. 

Fremonter, 308. 

French, the, 19, 21, 34, 42, 402. 

French colonies, 53. 

Fridley, 76. 

Fugitive slave law, and Republican plat- 
form, 103, 151, 155-157, 170-172; and 
Lincoln, 104, 114, 128, 133-135, 148, 
195; and Campbell, 187; and Compro- 
mise of 1850, 273; and new territories, 
301; and the Constitution, 347, 356-357, 
406. 

Galena, Ills., 151. 

Galena district, 186, 187, 199, 203, 236. 

Galesburgh, Ills., 98-100, 257-262, 234-305, 

.320. .323, 341.342. 
Garrison, W. L., 262, 306. 
George III., 362. 

Georgia, 70, 105. 283, 312, 383, 394. 
Germans, the, 34, 96. 
Giddings, T. R., 103-109, 152-153, 170, 

201, 234, 262, 306, 360. 
Great Britain, 78, 94, .360. 
Green Mts., 91. 170, 327. 
Groesbeck, 260. 



412 



INDEX. 



Hale, J. P., 146, 201, 234. 

Hall, B". F., 189. 

Hamilton, J., 107, 237. 

Hancock Co., Ills., 197. 

Harper's Magazine, 368. 

Harris, T. L., 149, 173, 232, 275-286, 

301-302, 323-324. 
Henderson Co., Ills., 287. 
Henry, J., 55, 197, 242. 
Herrington, A. M., 189. 
Hickman, 398. 
"Hickory, Old," 204,334. 
Hillsboro, Ills., 100. 
Hise, John, 189. 
Hope," Dr., 335. 
Horsman, J., 189. 
Hoyne, T., 189. 

Illinois, and slavery, 4, 6, 14-18, 44, 46, 
56, 63, 68, 69, 75, 76, 108-110, 124, 
144-145, 155. 175, 178, 200, 266, 268, 
285, 316, 328, 337, .351, 402, 407; and 
Popular Sovereignty, 10, 385; Repub- 
licans of, 13; people of, 19, 41, 59, 129, 
257, 325-326; and state sovereignty. 28, 
37-40, 61, 77, 167, 238, 309-310, 330, 363; 
Democracy of, 41; and Lincoln, 43, 
80-81, 232, 262; prairies of, 70, 91, 117, 
327; constitution of, 79; campaign, 83. 
88,390,393,399; free-men of, 94; and 
Compromise Measures of 1850, 101-102 ; 
and Trumbull, 105-106,208; Abolition- 
ism in, 136, 203, 357; and English bill, 
259,260; and cranberry laws, 348-349; 
and Ordinance of '87, 395, 401, 403. 

Illinois Legislature, 15, 31, 40, 64, 161, 
230. 

Illinois platform, 11. 

Illinois Republican State Convention, 72, 
103, 162, 286, 290, 302. 

" Illinois State Register,"' 149, 275-277, 
302, 323. 

Illinois Supreme Court, 125, 280. 

Indiana, 28-,37, 203, 259-260, 322, .3.32, 
.341-349, ,395-402. 

Indians, the, 55, 78, 177, .3.36, 347. 

Iowa, 183,-394. 

Irish, the, 34, 96. 

Jackson, Gen. T. J., .30-31, 93, 125, 209, 
222, 252, 279, 289," 321. 

Jackson, W. M., 189. 

Jacksonville, 208-209, 220, 242-243, 251, 
296, 359. 

James, 5, 118, 130. 

Jamestown, Va., 53. 

Japanese, the, 55. 

jarvis, 92. 

jay, John, 107, 2.37. 

Jefferson, Thomas, and Declaration of 
Independence, 55 ; letter of, 92-93 ; 101 ; 
and slavery, 107, 116-117, 222-223, 237, 
265, 269, .399; and Supreme Court, 125, 
279; and ordinance of '87, 198; 252. 

Johnson, Col. R. M., 207, 365. 



Joliet, Ills., 149, 188-189, 197, 199. 
Jonesboro, Ills.. 98-104, 167, 197, 270,284, 

291, 235-238, 312. 
Judd, Mr., 97, 233. 

Kane Co., Ills., 137, 189. 

Kansas, and the Lecompton Constitution, 
3, 8-15, 36-41, 61-65, 123, 142, 179, 239, 
257-260; Constitution of, 23, 143, 165, 
209-212, 219-225, 243-254, 304; and 
Kansas-Nebraska bill, 51, 102,312,a34; 
and slavery, 74-75, 103, 112, 144, 151, 
200, 205-206, 266, 288, 329-330, 346, 
361-363, 394; and English bill, 136, 
191-192,3.31-332; Convention, 211,215- 
216, 248, 255. 

Kansas-Nebraska bill, referred to by 
Douglas at Chicago, 11, 15, 18; at 
Bloomington, 37-41, 46, 51-52, 58; at 
Springfield, 66, 75; at Ottawa, 102, 
1.31-1.32; at Freeport, 144-147, 159-160; 
at Jonesboro, 169-170, 200; at Charles- 
ton, 226-227, 230; at Galesburgh, 257, 
266-267; at Quincy, 303, 312-316; at 
Alton, ,3.36; referred to by Lincoln at 
Chicago, 22, 27,31; at Springfield, 90, 
95; at Ottawa, 117-121; at Freeport, 
1.38-1.39, 162; at Jonesboro, 184; at 
Charleston, 2.39, 243; at Galesburgh, 
272-273; at Quincy, 295; at Alton, 
,338-a39, 345. 

Kaskaskia, Ills., 402. ->■ 

Kelly, 189. "'^ ' 

Kentucky, slavery in, 1,3, 18, 37, 44, 46, 75, 
79, 109-110, 124,178, 266, 268, 319, a37, 
406; and Kansas, ,38; and Abolitionists, 
45, 68 69, 89, 203, ,308; rights of negro 
in, 57, 76-77, 264; tobacco regions of, 
70; and the Democrats, 167, 171, 261; 
and the Republicans, 262, 285, 293-294, 
,307; and Clav, .322, .342; and Douglas, 
388-400; and'ordinance of '87, 401-402. 

Keystone Club, .315. 

Know-nnthing party, 95, 173, 2,32. 

Knox Co., Ills., 2.57, 284. 

Land Department, 172. 

Lanphier, Chas. IL, 149, 275-277,285-286, 
302, 323. 

La Salle Co., Ills., 189. 

" La Salle Democrat," the, 188. 

Lawrence, 1-57. 

Lecompton Constitution, 3-45, 60-65, 84- 
88, 123-124, 142, 164-166, 179, 239, 249, 
257-261, 275, a30-.3.33, 345. 

Lecompton men, 2C0. 

Lee, R. H., 55. 

Liberia, 9, 113. 

Lincoln, A., first speech at Springfield, 
1-7; speech at Chicago, 20-35; second 
speech at Springfield, 81-96; corres- 
pondence with Douglas, 97-100; speech 
at Ottawa, 111-126; speech at Freeport, 
1.33-142, rejoinder, 161-167; speech at 
Jonesboro, 180-198; speech at Charles- 



INDEX. 



413 



ton, 207-218, rejoinder, 238-244; speech 
at Galesburgh, 268-283; speech at 
Quincy, 290-300; rejoinder, 318-324; 
speech at Alton, 338-356; speech at 
Columbus, 363-386 ; speech at Cincin- 
nati, 386-407. 

Liquor laws, 28. 

Little, 157. 

Lockwood, Judge, 16. 

Louisiana, 70, 101, 117, 147, 167, 184, 261, 
349 391. 

Lovejoy> Parson, 103-112, 148-156, 170- 
177, 197-203, 231-236, 262, 287-326. 

Lovejoy district, 294. 

Lyman, 157. 

McDoNELL, Chas., 189. 

McDonough Co., Ills., 197. 

McHenry Co., Ills., 189. 

McLean Co., Ills., 5, 36, 59,'295. 

Mace, 5. 

Macomb, Ills., 197. 

Madison, James, 107-117, ;222-223, 237, 
252 399. 

Maine, 14^ 17, 28, 56, 70, 76, 110-117, 178, 
266, 349. 

Maine liquor law, 13, 15, 70, 266, 312, 362. 

Malay, 177. 

Marshall, Judge, 16, 72. 

Marshall Co., Ills., 197. 

Maryland, 407. 

Mafon and Dixon's line, 262. 

Mas. -^usetts, 101, 167, 241, 261-262, 358. 

Matheny, Jas. H., 102, 106, 173, 182, 
201-202, 232-240. 

Matteson, Joel, 189. 

Mattoon, Ills., 243. 

Mayo, Z. B., 189-190. 

Memphis, Tenn., 390-393. 

Methodist Church, 350. 

Mexican army, 358. 

Mexican laws, 272. 

Mexican war, men engaged in, 80; 
opposed by Lincoln, 105, 115, 148, 228, 
241, 286, 357-358; territory acquired 
by, 185, 239, 282. 

Mexicans, 358. 

Mexico, 18, 53, 172, 179, 20L 

Michigan, 122, 395, 402. 

Mining, 70. 

Minnesota, .39, 48, 63,J0, 193, 246, 316. 

Minnesota case, 180. 

Mississippi river, 48, 59, 147, 176, 307. 

Missouri, U. S. Circuit Court of, 2; and 
slavery, 6, 51, 108, 155, 300, 308-309, 
337, 344, 363; and state sovereignty, 
38, 178, 317, 330, 353; and Lincoln, 69; 
and Kansas, 74; Constitution, 132; 
French settlements in, 402-403. 

Missouri Compromise, origin and extent, 
48, 132, 183, 239; referred to by Doug- 
las, 49, 314; and Kansas, 51, 75; repeal 
of, 90, 112, 170, 184-185, 196, .338 ; and 
Clay, 95; referred to by Lincoln, 349, 
396. 



Missouri courts, 303. 
Missouri line, 48, 104, 134. 
"Missouri Republican," 197, 245. 
Missouri restriction, 92. 
Molony, R. S., 188, 189, 202. 
Monroe Co., Ills., 234, 235, 252, 264, 
269. 



Naper, Capt., 189. 

Naperville, Ills., 189. 

Napoleon, 83, 88. 

National Bank, 30, 93, 125, 280, 289, 320. 

"National Democracy," 185, 228, 249, 
269, 275. 

Nebraska, organization, 11, 65, 102; poli- 
ticians, 94; and slavery, 103, 112-114, 
151, 200, 212, 394; constitution, 329; 
and Kansas-Nebraska bill, 334. 

Negro citizenship, 54, 75-79, 108, 219, 
231-238, 262, 338.339. 

Negro democracy, 407. 

Negro equality, Douglas opposed to, 
78-79, 108, 128, 2.31, 306-307, 322; Lin- 
coln's doctrine, 221, 263, 284, 293, 326, 
339-340, 364-365. 

Negro regulations, 76. 

Negro sufTrage, 364-366. 

Negro voting, 76. 

Nelson, Judge, 6, 295. 

New England, 14, 70. 

New Hampshire, 14, 46, 70, 107, 328. 

New Jersey, 46. 328. 

New Mexico, 147, 191, 272-273, 304, 314- 
315 329. 

New Mexico bill, 273. 

New Orleans, 171. 

New York, and slavery, 14, 38, 46, 109, 
110, 171, .328; negro franchise of, 17-18, 
57, 76, 178, 266; Douglas's stay in, 83, 
88; and Abolitionists, 169; 398. 

"New York Tribune," .39, 65. 

Niagara river, 69, 1.57. 

North, the, .316, .3.34, 363, 385-399. 

North-West territory, 402. 

Northern Abolitionists, 168, 229. 

Norton, 149, 276, 323-324. 

Nullification, 105, a34, 349, 360. 



Ohio, 110, 120, 139, 260-262, 307, 332, 
.3&3, .385-402. 

Ohio river, 45, 69, 89, 101, 118, 157, 272, 
.391-401. 

"Ohio statesman," 364. 

Ordinance of 1787, 75, 92, 188, 383, 
395-40.3. 

Oregon,' 143-144, 147, 304. 

Orr, Jas. L., 267, 312, .3.36. 

Ottawa, Ills., joint debate at, 98, 100-101, 
145-150, 189, 191-197, 199, 238, 242, 275, 
277, 286-287, 293-297, ,304, 307, 322-328, 
364; resolutions at, 183, 285. 

"Ottawa Free-Trader," .364. 

Oyster laws, 28, 348-349, .360. 



414 



INDEX. 



Pacific ocean, 14, 59, 147, 176. 

Palmer, John M., 174, 233. 

Peck, J. J., 233. 

Pendleton, W. N., 260. 

Pennsylvania, 14, 46, 2G0, 328, 332, 398. 

Peoria, Ills., 112. 

Peru, Ills., 188. 

Pettit, 341. 

Philadelphia, 290, 359. 

Phillips, Wendell, 306. 

Phoenix. John, 164. 

Pierce, Franklin, 130-131, 159-160, 187, 
223-230, 252, 303. 

Pinckney, 157. 

Pine lumber laws, 349. 

Piatt, P. W., 189. 

Polk, J. K., 222. 

"Popular sovereignty," referred to by 
Lincoln, 22-25, 84-88, 95, 116, 120, 321, 
381-385, 393, 394, 401-404; referred to 
by Douglas, 40, 51-52, 59, 63, 74, 101, 
110, 220, 251, 258. 

Portuguese, 96. 

Potomac river, 146, 153, 288. 

Poughkeepsie, N. Y., 231. 

Presbyterian general assembly, 350. 

Princeton, Ills., 189. 

Pryor, Roger A., 398. 

Qlincy, Ills., 98, 100, 290, 338, 354. 

Railroad system, 363. 

Randolph Co., Ills., 235. 

Reddick, Wm., 189. 

Renwick, Geo., 189. 

"Republican, the," 92. 

Republican abolition candidates, 332. 

Republican caucus, 16. 

Republican congressional convention, 301. 

Republican Congressional district, 301. 

Republican convention, at Springfield, 
13, 150, 276, 286-287. 

Republican county convention, 302. 

Republican institutions, 283. 

Republican judges, 50, 73. 

Republican legislature, 81-82, 154. 

Republican national convention, 290-291. 

Republican partv, and slavery, 9, 32, 68, 
74, 109-110, 129, 150, 190, 228, 231, 287, 
298-299, 328, 352, 367-368, 382, 399-400; 
and Federal office-holders, 19-20,261; 
and Democratic alliance, 21-22, .36, 
42-43; and State constitution, 24; and 
Lecompton constitution, 25, 39, 85-87, 
166-167, 249-251, 258, 261; and Critten- 
den-Montgomery bill, 40, 65-66; and 
Lecompton men, 41; and Kansas- 
Nebraska hill, 51; and Dred Scott 
decision, 72; organization of, 102, 127, 
149, 152, 168; platform of, 103-104, 128, 
132, 150, 154, 162, 186, 286, 290-302; and 
nomination of Lincoln, 106, 174, 233; 
and N. W. Compromise, 170 ; principles, 
262-269; sectional, 271-275,307-308; and 
Supreme court, 311, 320; Ohio, 386. 



Republican politicians, 58. 

Republican State Convention, 1, 13, 43, 71, 
103, 106, 111, 127-128, 1.37, 149-150, 174, 
186, 235, 271, 275, 286-291, 302, 308, 325. 

Revolution, the, 265, 402. 

Reynolds, Gov., 170, 185, 231-234. 

Rhode Island, 46, 328. 

" Richmond Inquirer, the," 398. 

Rockford, 151, 286, 301-302. 

Rockford Convention, 150. 

Roger, 5, 118, 130. 

Russia, 46, 271, 285. 

Russians, the, 19-21. 

St. Genevieve, 402. 

St. Louis, 353. 

Salem, 105. 

Sangamon Co., 60, 94, 105, 235, 263, 305. 

Sargent, 157. 

Scandinavian, 34. 

Scott, Gen., 183, 230. 

Sebastopol, 19, 21. 

Seward, W. H., 72-73, 146, 230, 254, 360, 
368, 387, 398. 

Sherman, F. C, 189. 

Shields, Gen., 102-111, 154, 169-172, 2.30- 
232. 

.Silliman letter, 3. 

Singleton, Gen., 359. 

Slave Code, 205, 312-313, 367. 

Slave Code, Congressional, see C. 

Slave States, opposed to Free States, 14, 
44-45, 58, 111, 117-118, 132, 169, 300, 
319,348,387-388; and Kansas, 38,123, 
179, 205, 249-251, 258-259, 3;30-.3.32; and 
Kansas-Nebraska bill, 40, 147, 316; 
existence since 1789, 43, 78, 107, 158, 
267-268,325-328,360-361; and Lecomp- 
ton constitution, 61-62; and Republi- 
cans, 66, 101, 261-262, 271-273, 285, 
301-308, 317; abolition in, 67-72, 89-91, 
159, 175-178, 2.37, 353, 362; new, 
103-104, 128, 1.31-135, 151-163, 170, 
187-188, 191, 199-203, 236, 287, 329, 351 ; 
population of, 143-144; and emancipa- 
tion, 344; and the Bible, 392; and 
Illinois, 403; and Douglas, 406-407. 

Smith, Enos W., 189. 

Smith, [udge, 16. 

Smith, Sain., 312. 

South, the, 9, 316, 334, .362-3a3, 384, 398. 

South America, 18, 53, 80, 282. 

South Carolina, rice plantations of, 14, 
70, 107, 176, 327; and abolitionists, 
45-46; and Illinois, 77. 

Southern disunionists, 168, 229. 

Spanish-American states, 18. 

Spanish colonies, 53. 

Springfield, Ills., 231, 235, 267; Lincoln's 
speeches at, 1, 26, 81, 106, 115-119, 
184-185, 237, 303, 322-327, 3,38-348; 
Republican convention at, 43, 103, 111, 
127-129, 1;17, 148-152, 158, 163, 174, 183, 
264, 271-276, 285-295, 301-308, ,324-325; 
Douglas's speech at, 60, 118, 1-30, 196; 



INDEX. 



415 



Democratic state central committee at, 

97; Lincoln's letters from, 98-100; 

Legislature at, 232. 
Springfield, Mass., 227. 
Springfield district, 149, 201. 
"Springfield lournal, the," 100. 
"Springfield Register, the," 100, 241. 
Squatter sovereignty, 1, 22-23, 321, 385. 
State Constitutions, 366. 
State Legislatures, 15, 46, 68, 70, 91, 208. 
State rights, 59, 179. 
State sovereignty, 15, 46, 68-71, 165, 179, 

327. 
Stephen, Alex. H., 5, 118, 130, 312, 3.36, 

384. 
Stephenson Co., Ills., 2.35. 
Strode, J. M., 189. 
Stuart, 122. 

Sumner, Chas., 91, 181. 
Swan, 157. 
Sweet, Martin P., 187-188. 

Taney, Judge, and Dred Scott case, 5, 119, 
176-178, 206, 266, 289, 311, 335, 342, 362; 
referred to by Douglas, 16, 73-74; and 
the charge of conspiracy, 66, 131, 303. 

Taylor, Zachary, 223, 359. 

Tazewell county. 111, 127-128, 150, 263- 
264, 269. 

Tazewell Court, 287. 

Tennessee, 312, 390. 

Tennesseeans, 264, 293. 

Territorial bills, 314. 

Territorial legislature, 253, 314. 

Territorial slave code, 385, 406. 

Texas, 176, 187-188, 201, 273, 329. 

Texas, annexation of, 185, 239, 349. 

Texas boundary, 273, 314. 

Tobacco, 70. 

Toombs, Robt., 146, 164-165, 214-216, 
244-253, 288. 

Toombs bill, 210-225, 242, 247-2.54. 

Topeka constitution, 255. 

Tories, 362. 

Trumbull, Senator, 2, 25, 87, 102-112, 
1.37-154, 169-277, 290-297, 324. 

Turks, 19, 21. 

Turner, T. J., 153-157. 

Union, Ills., 170. 

Union Democrats, 168, 229, 360, 

Union men, 229. 

Union Whigs, 168, 229. 

Unitarian Church, .350. 

U. S. Constitution, see Constitution of 
U. S. 

United States Supreme Court, and Illi- 
nois, 6; decision opposed by Lincoln, 
15-18, 46, 50, 55, 124, 160, 176-178, 192, 
196, 205-206, 226-227, 237-238, 278, 288, 
312, .320-326, 3.35, .3.38, 355, 366, 380-381, 
396-397; and National Bank, 30, 92-94, 
125, 280; appeal from, 49, 72, 289, 310; 
Douglas's suppositions, 73; Lincoln's 
charge of conspiracy, 131, 141, 1.59, 



303; future decisions on slavery, 124, 
144-146, 193, 294-295, and U. S. consti- 
tution, 279, 311. 
Utah,272, 273, 314, 315. 

Van Buren, M., 252. 

Vermont, 117, 176, 191, 203-204, 327. 

Virginia, purchase of slaves in, 7 ; slavery 
in, 13, 44, 46, 109-110, 264, 293-294; 
398, 402 ; negroes' rights in, 18, 91, 266 ; 
oyster laws of, 28, 348-349; and aboli- 
tionists, 69, 308, 319, .343; tobacco 
regions of, 70. 

Virginia Supreme Court, 91. 

Voss, A., 189. 

Wabash, Ind., 203. 
Wade, B. F., 363. 

Warren Co., Ills., 287. 

Washburne, E. B., 150-153, 20a,'236. 
Washington, D. C, 66, 83, 162, 172, 202, 

226-227, 297, 398. 
Washington, George, 107-117, 175-176, 

222-223, 237, 252, 269, 399. 
Washington's army, 180. 
Washington Territory, 201. 
"Washington Union, the," 122-124, 142, 

146, 1.59-166, 288, 313-319, 334. 
Waterloo, Ills., 171, 185, 235. 
Waukegan, Ills., 235. 
Webster, Daniel, 58-64, 95-101, 152-153, 

167-168, 228-230, 313, 316. 
Wendell, Cornelius, 160. 
Wentworth, John, 106, 153, 170, 174, 202, 

2.33. 
West India Islands, 53, 80. 
Whig caucus, 359. 
Whig national convention, 153, 168, 183, 

230, 859. 
Whig Presidents, 222-223. 
Whigs, and Crittenden-Montgomery bill, 

9 ; and slaverv, 11, 27 ; and Compromise 

Measures of 1850, 58, 101-102, 228-230, 

.30.5, 329, 3.34; and Wilmot proviso, 64; 

and Douglas, 95, 167-168, 183, 261; 

abolitionized, 103-106, 112, 115, 152-154, 

169, 173, 202, 231, 2.34, 262, 297; and 

Trumbull, 2.33, 240; Union, 360. 
Wilcox, Elijah, 189. 
Will Co., Ills., 189. 
Williams, Archie, 106, 174, 2.33. 
Williams, E. B., 189. 
Wilmot proviso, 10, 64, 105-106, 148-156. 

169-172, 253, ,359. 
Wilson, C. L., 20, 146. 
Winchester, Ills., 105. 
Winnebago Co., Ills., 189. 
Wisconsin, 395, 402. 
Wise, II. A.,. 398.399. 
Wogley, ,320, 

Yates, 128, 276. 



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